


To Have and To Hold

by inkling



Category: Early Edition
Genre: Canon - TV, Case Fic, Gen, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-06-01
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:09:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkling/pseuds/inkling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gary rescues a mystery woman and finds out she's not the only one caught between the future and the past.  Second season.  Spoilers for "Don't Walk Away, Renee."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My very first fanfic, written and posted to the old EEL Fanfic list ten years or so ago, ca. 1998-99. I had no idea what a beta reader was and barely understood the concept of MarySue. But it was a fun story to write, and it connected me into the larger world of online fandom for good and brought to me the most wonderful friendship ever. Here's the Days of the GTA, ladies!

She knew she could remember, if she just tried hard enough. Putting her hands to her head, ignoring the twinge of pain from the bruises on her right arm, she closed her eyes and concentrated hard. Slowly, oh so slowly, she groped through the dark foggy quicksand her thoughts had become, until at last she saw it, felt it, reached for it with every fiber of her being. So close, now, so close, she could see it in her mind, and, like a door opening into a warmly lit house on a dark night, she began to remember -- comfort... security... laughter, and -- love. Hungrily, she reached for the door, for the sliver of light opening in her darkened mind, and this time she was going to make it, she was almost there, she was al---

Howling, the storm rose, just like it had all the other times she had tried, just as her thoughts were beginning to grasp the memories she longed for. Like a foul, seething vapor, it surged between her and the door she had so laboriously opened, and, like the frightened child she had become, she fell away from its monstrosity, fell back, giving up the hard won ground in her mind. But not fast enough. She was never fast enough to get away completely from the screams that now sounded in her brain, the dread and horror that overwhelmed the light and warmth --

"No!" Unaware that she had cried aloud, the woman reeled, eyes still closed, bumping into another pedestrian. The man caught her briefly as her eyes snapped open, then shoved her away with disgust when he noticed the blank terror on her face.

"Watch where you're going, bitch!" He stalked off, muttering under his breath about the crazies they let roam the streets, while the woman, knocked off balance by his push, staggered and fell to the ground. Keeping her head down, avoiding the curious stares of the other pedestrians carefully stepping around her, she scuttled for the closest shelter she could find, a metal newspaper stand. A few days ago, she would have read the name of the paper, and perhaps dug for change in her purse to buy the daily edition, but this afternoon she just huddled in its meager shelter, shivering in the biting wind, desperately trying to damp the storm raging in her thoughts before it destroyed her completely.

Don't think, don't think, don't think about anything. Nothing nothing think nothing be nothing nothing... Whimpering to herself, she laboriously began to gather the scraps of fog about her thoughts again, her mind sinking gratefully into the quicksand that would still it, calm it, refuse to admit the raging beast.

Then, her mind blank, safe once again from the chaos, the storm, the woman leaned her head against the newspaper stand and wept silently.

******************************************

Gary Hobson paused for a second as he strode down the sidewalk, pulling a folded and much read newspaper out of the inside pocket of his bomber jacket. Green eyes intense, he found the article he was looking for, then looked around to scan the street signs to be sure he was in the right place. Okay, he was in the right place, and a quick glance at his watch told him it was - or shortly would be - the right time, now he just needed to find the right person.

The cold wind ruffled Gary's dark hair in as he scanned the city block in front of him, looking for this particular distressed person the paper had sent him to help. He quickly read through the article again. Headlined UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN KILLED BY TRUCK, the story went on to tell about a Jane Doe who suddenly ran out in front of a UPS truck on this block at 4:37 p.m. The driver couldn't stop in time to avoid her, and the woman was struck and killed. Witnesses reported that the woman had been wandering the sidewalk before the accident, seemingly dazed and incoherent. Just before she ran out into the street, she had been huddled beside a Chicago Sun-Times newspaper stand. The article closed with a description of the woman, and the statement that no identification was found on her. Anyone who thought they might have information was requested to contact Chicago P.D.

Gary finally spotted the newspaper stand, about half way down the block from where he stood. And there, at the far end of the block was a UPS truck, patiently waiting through a red light. He quickly pocketed his paper and began to run.

*****************************************

"Hey lady!" She jerked at the sound of the man's voice behind her, then huddled closer to the stand. It didn't work. She cried out as a hand grabbed her arm, yanking her to her feet, where a man's face thrust itself into her field of view.

"Can't you read? The sign says No Loitering!'" The burly man jerked a thumb at the sign posted in the window of the pawn shop behind him. "We don't want any trash like you cluttering up our streets. Now get lost!" With that he shoved her, almost knocking her down. Panicked, confused, with a single thought - to get away - she looked wildly around the sidewalk, at the people now ringing around her and the shop owner, all staring at her. Turning round and round desperately, she ran the only way she could see that was clear of leering faces: toward the street.

*****************************************

Gary thrust his way through the crowd just in time to see the woman head for the street.

"Hey!" He lunged forward and grabbed her by the arm, jerking her around to face him. Quickly he shifted his grip, catching her by both arms for the few seconds it took him to watch the UPS truck rumble by, then he looked down - right in time to almost get his eyes clawed out, as the woman he had just saved seemed to go berserk.

"Hey!" He shouted again, releasing her and jumping back. He threw his hands up -- too late to protect his face. The laughter and jeers of the assembled crowd grew louder as he gingerly fingered the long scratch that had suddenly appeared on his face. Gary stared in disbelief at the blood on his hand, then up at the woman, suddenly frozen in front of him. Her face screwed into a great "O," she reached with a slender hand toward the red streak down the right side of his face, then met his eyes for one stricken minute. Gary saw a pair of haunted blue eyes as she mouthed, "I'm sorry." Backing away, she suddenly turned and ran, dodging through the crowd down the sidewalk this time.

Gary inspected the scratch on his face a second time, frowning at the blood on his fingers as the crowd began to disperse around him -- with a few ribald comments directed his way. Wiping his fingers on his pants leg, Gary made a face at one of the riper commentators.

"Yeah, yeah, why don't you go get a life or something?" His comment elicited a few last laughs at his expense from the final hangers on. Satisfied that the damage to his face wasn't serious, he looked down the street where the crazy woman had disappeared, shaking his head. "Sheesh!" Then pulling the paper out of his coat again Gary turned to the last page, checking to be sure he had done all that needed to be done here.

He swore bitterly. So much for getting back to McGinty's to help out before Happy Hour went into full swing. The headline had changed, but it was no better. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN DROWNS. The smaller headline under it read: "Evidence indicates victim assaulted in Grant Park." Gary sighed. Chuck wasn't gonna be happy about this, not at all. He shook his head as he stuffed the paper back inside his coat. Then he zipped it up and headed off in search of the woman again.

It took him over an hour, but Gary finally found the woman. He spent that hour searching from one end of Grant Park to the other with no sight of the lady in question. Tired, cold, and hungry, angrier by the minute at the paper's unceremonious pre-emption of his own plans, his own life, Gary turned back with a sigh to check one more time. He found his quarry shortly thereafter, curled up on a park bench staring out over the cold, gray lake.

Gary pulled the paper out of his coat. The headline was still there. Stowing the paper, he flipped his coat collar up, then blew on his hands and rubbed them together to warm them. The wind was getting colder as the day waned. He approached the woman warily, reluctant to repeat his earlier face-to-face encounter with her. This time she didn't seem to notice him, not even when he gingerly took a seat on the opposite end of the bench.

"Miss? Ma'am?" There was no response. She sat on her end of the bench, knees pulled up to her chest and her head buried in her arms as they rested on her knees. Gary watched her in silence for a minute, trying to ignore the growing chill as evening fell. For all that she had freaked out on him earlier, she didn't look like your typical transient. She wore a long, full plaid skirt of some soft material that flowed down over her knees and most of her feet. Over that she wore a solid blue tunic sweater. What Gary could see of her shoes looked like Birkenstocks or something. Her long, copper hair was snarled and tangled, but it, too, looked as if it was used to being cared for. She had no coat, but, ragged and dirty as she was, the woman just didn't look like someone who belonged on the streets.

Clearing his throat, Gary tried again.

"Ma'am? Miss? Look, it's- it's getting kinda dark out here, and you really should, you really should be someplace warm." Still no response. Gary sighed. He reached out and tentatively touched her on the shoulder. Her only response was to cringe away from him, without lifting her head. Well, at least he knew she knew he was there.

"Look, Miss, it seems- um, you seem- um, are you in some kind of trouble?" Gary's voice was low and urgent. "'Cause it's gonna get real cold here tonight, and- and- you know you really shouldn't be out here by yourself anyway. Isn't there someone I can call or somewhere I can take you?" Geez, he was getting cold sitting here, even if she wasn't. But then he noticed she was trembling, from cold or fear of him he couldn't tell. Maybe both.

Not sure what to do, Gary leaned back against the bench and looked around the park. It was getting darker by the minute, and there didn't seem to be anybody about other than the two of them. He pulled the paper from his coat. A glance told him the headline hadn't changed, but he didn't need the paper to tell him he really couldn't leave her here, alone in the park at night. Falling in the water wasn't the only thing she had to worry about. He sat, trying to decide what to do, tapping the paper agitatedly against his hand.

"Who- who are you? Why are you following me?" Startled, Gary swung back around towards the woman. She was looking at him from half behind a screen of hair. Her eyes were blue, he noticed again, and her lips were too, from cold. He really had to get her somewhere warm, out of this wind. She reached up and brushed the hair from her face, beginning to look nervous when he didn't answer her. Gary winced at the angry purple bruise he could now see high on her forehead. That had to've hurt.

"You- you hit your head," he blurted, without thinking.

"Wh- what?" Confused, her nervousness momentarily forgotten, she gingerly reached up to examine her forehead, blinking a little in surprise when her fingers found the bruise. As she did so, something on her hand glinted in the nearby streetlight. It only took a moment for Gary's brain to click; it was a ring on the third finger of her left hand - a *wedding* band. A fancy, intricately carved wedding band. His brow furrowed in concern as he stared at it. Who was this woman, and what had happened to her that put her out on the streets like this? The woman, her inspection finished, looked nervously at him again.

Putting one elbow up on the back of the bench, Gary leaned toward her and gestured with the paper he still held in his hand.

"Look, I - I have this- I just know you're in trouble and you really shouldn't be out here alone and without a coat." She wasn't buying it, he could tell. Her feet slipped down off the bench and she gripped the seat with both hands, leaning away from him, looking like she was ready to bolt at any second. Desperate to keep her from taking off again, Gary kept talking.

"My name's Gary, Gary Hobson. I own a tavern here, see, and I'm--" he stopped, puzzled at the sudden change in her expression. She was staring at him intensely now, almost like she knew him, or thought she did. Like a light was trying to go on in a dark room -- or something. Who knew what was going on inside that brain of hers. He sure didn't.

"Gar? Gary?" She turned toward him on the bench and once again reached out tentatively for his face. Gary, unsure what to make of this turn of events, hesitated before answering. She was still staring intently at him, hand half stretched out toward him as he spoke again.

"Yeah, that's right, Gary. Gary Hobson."

Shuddering, she closed her eyes, pulling her hand back and dropping it limply into her lap with her other one. Gary watched her as she seemed to almost fold in upon herself. Whatever light she had been trying to turn on was gone now, and she sat there listlessly, head hanging and shivering in the dim light. Well, he wasn't going to give up now, not when he'd made this much progress.

"Hey, you know my name. It's only fair you tell me yours." He made his tone light, teasing. But he wasn't prepared for her answer, as she stood and wrapped her arms around herself, staring away from him into the frigid waters of Lake Michigan.

"I can't. I don't remember."

*************************************************

In the end, he took the nameless woman home with him to McGinty's. Not the best solution, but she balked when he suggested a hospital, and Gary didn't feel right turning her over to the police. She'd spend the night in some holding cell only to wind up on the streets again in the morning. Shivering uncontrollably, her face and hands by then blue with cold, she refused his coat at first, but once they had gotten on the EL he finally convinced her he'd be alright without it. He was really worried she might be getting hypothermic. At McGinty's he had somehow gotten her in the front door and up the stairs without garnering attention from Chuck or any of their employees. The last thing he needed to deal with tonight was Chuck's sarcasm or staff rumors or both. His guest was taking a hot shower now, with a pair of Gary's Bears sweats and a cutoff sweatshirt to put on when she got out. Gary was headed down to the kitchen in search of something hot to eat for both of them.

"Hey, we got any soup left?" Gary dodged the cook, who nodded toward the back stove as he hurried by. In short order, Gary had a tray loaded with two bowls of chowder, two mugs of hot cider and some hot fries. Picking it up and turning toward the kitchen door, he almost ran into Chuck.

"Geez, Chuck, you don't have to sneak up on a guy! I almost dropped all this!"

Chuck leaned against the kitchen's center island and crossed his arms across his chest. His stare was bleak.

"Yeah, well, we almost didn't survive happy hour without you. I thought you were gonna be here to help out. You ARE the one who gave both Robin and Crumb the same weekend off."

Gary winced.

"Yeah, well, look, Chuck, you know I really planned on being here, but the paper had other ideas-- you know how it goes. Just let me take this stuff upstairs, and then I'll be right back down here to help out for the rest of the evening."

Chuck wasn't giving ground. He eyed the contents of the tray speculatively.

"Dining in for two, I see." He looked up at Gary, one eyebrow cocked. "Anybody I know?"

Gary sighed.

"No. Look, Chuck, it's a long story --"

"I'm sure it is."

"Yeah, well, it is and I, well, I - look, just let me take this upstairs and I'll be right back down, alright?"

Chuck looked at him knowingly for another minute before standing aside.

"Did you ask her out before or after she scratched your face?"

Gary glared and pointed a finger in Chuck's general direction. "I'm just - I'm just gonna ignore that." he said, stepping around Chuck and heading for the door with his tray.

Chuck followed him through the bar, shoving through the door of the office after Gary.

"Yeah, well you ignored happy hour, too, Gar." Chuck stopped at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the railing. "Take your time, Gary. We'll survive without you; we always do!" This last was shouted up the empty stairwell as Gary's door slammed above his head.


	2. Chapter 2

"Good morning, Chicago! It's going to be a cool but clear weekend, with rain and thunderstorms blowing in late Sun-"

The early morning announcer's voice shut off midword as Gary's hand groped out from under the covers and slapped onto his clock. Lying on his stomach, his face pressed into the pillow, he squinted one eye open with a groan to check the time -- 6:30, same as always. Why did he even bother to look anymore? And sure enough, there was the familiar "mrreow!" outside his door and the *plop!* on the floor that always followed it. Gary closed his eye and muttered "Yeah, yeah, be right there," without moving. Suddenly, both eyes popped open, and he pushed himself up, twisting around to check his couch. Just showing over the end closest to him he could see part of a head of red hair. The rest of his nameless companion lay exactly where she had fallen asleep last night after supper, a shapeless mass beneath the comforter he had thrown over her when he came up to bed.

*Well, at least one of us can sleep in.* Gary swung out of bed and rubbed his face as he padded to the door. Snow's cat darted in as he opened it and reached down for the paper. Closing the door absently, he paused to scan the front page. Sunday's front headline read, "PRESIDENT'S SECRETARY TO TESTIFY AGAIN."

"Well, sorry, but there ain't nothin' I can do about that, Mr. President."

He was halfway to the bathroom before the rumbling purr of the cat registered. Surprised, he looked around and after a minute located it: curled up in the hollow of the comforter behind his guest's knees.

"Well, if that don't beat all." The cat opened its eyes briefly to look at him, took a lick at its whiskers, then snuggled in and for all intents and purposes looked to be sound asleep. Except for the purring.

Gary shook his head and headed for the shower, it being too early in the morning to try and figure out the vagaries of mystery women and cats -- let alone this cat. Clean clothes in hand, he looked thoughtfully at the couch before taking the newspaper into the bathroom with him. The woman seemed to be sound asleep, but Gary was mindful of past experience.

In the bathroom he took a few minutes to peruse the rest of the pages, but there didn't seem to be much going on today in the Windy City. A tree blowing over and trapping a family in their car for a couple of hours seemed to be the worst. Since no one was injured and it was way out in the suburbs, Gary decided he could skip it. A kid's dog would get run over, not far from McGinty's. The boy was a terminal cancer patient, and the dog had been a gift from one of those charitable groups that tried to fulfill kid's wishes. That wouldn't be hard to deal with, and it was early enough in the morning he should be back in plenty of time for the lunchtime rush. But it didn't seem that anyone in the city or the surrounding area was really going to need his help today. And, there was absolutely nothing in the paper about his mystery guest, at least, not that Gary could find.

I wonder what's going on? He couldn't remember the last time there had been so little in the paper for him to do, and in a Sunday edition no less. It made him nervous, but, things could always change. In fact, they usually did.

Frowning, Gary checked the scratch on his face in the mirror before stepping under the shower. It was healing nicely. A glint of gold on the small shelf beneath the mirror caught his eye as he turned away. It was a pair of earrings, lying next to his razor for all the world as if they belonged there. Slim gold ribbons loosely woven into an elaborate braid dangled beneath what looked like real sapphires. Expensive was the first thought that came to him, the kind of present a man would give a woman he really cared about. Gary wondered again just exactly who the woman sleeping on his couch was, and how she had wound up on the streets of Chicago in such distress. And why didn't the paper have anything to say about her today?

Then, shrugging, he put the vagaries of the paper out of his mind with the cat and the mystery woman, and settled in to enjoy a long hot shower for once.

********

The bathroom door closed and a few minutes later she heard water running in the shower. Gary must want to get an early start today. Briefly she considered joining him, but it was warm under the comforter, the familiar weight of the cat rumbling behind her knees. The light shone softly through her eyelids, along with the warmth of her bed dispelling some of the shadows haunting her. She sighed comfortably, and, opting for a few more minutes of sleep, snuggled deeper into the cocoon of her covers.

********

Paper in hand, Gary stepped out of the bathroom a half hour or so later. As he tossed the clothes he had slept in toward the corner behind his bed, his mystery guest caught his eye. Still dressed in his Bears sweats, she stood by the window, seemingly entranced by the clouds scudding across the sky. What really caught Gary's attention was the entirely contented cat she cradled in one arm as she gently rubbed its head with her other hand. Gary shook his head. He had never seen that cat that friendly with anyone other than himself. Not for the first time, he wondered just what in the world was going on with this woman. What exactly did the cat and the paper want him to do with her?

He cleared his throat. What was the protocol for saying "good morning" to a woman when you have no clue as to who she is, when she has no clue herself as to who she is? A woman wearing another man's wedding ring and who has just spent the night in your apartment, no less. (One who tried to scratch your eyes out at least once already, the less charitable side of him added.)

"Uh, good morning."

She jerked around to face him, a remnant of yesterday's terror rising in her face. Gary tensed, but apparently she remembered something from last night, because she relaxed once her gaze met his. Gary kept a wary eye on her for a minute or two before he felt absolutely certain she wasn't going to freak out on him again, then he, too, relaxed. This morning the dark shadow of the bruise on her forehead was matched by the 2 large bruises on her upper right arm, just visible beneath the cut-off sleeves of her borrowed sweatshirt. She hadn't complained, but he had slid into enough bases in his life to know by how she didn't move her arm just how stiff and sore it had been last night.

"Good morning." Her voice was low, uncertain. She glanced nervously around the apartment, then back at him. "This- this - is this ours?"

Gary shook his head.

"No, it's mine." He stepped closer to her as she tilted her head in an "Oh" gesture and turned to stare out the window again. Yesterday he'd had too much on his mind to really pay attention to her looks, first just making sure he'd done what the paper wanted him to do, and secondly worrying about finally getting down and helping out in the bar. He'd wolfed his chowder, tossed her the TV remote in case she wanted it, and rushed out the door. She hadn't seemed to want company anyway. He had found her curled up on the couch, asleep with the cat in her arms the first time he'd come upstairs to check on her.

Now, in the morning light, he studied her. About his age, more or less, the woman's hair hung down her back almost to her waist in a burnished sheet of copper. Natural, Gary decided, looking at the freckles on her arms and face. Her eyes were blue, dark blue, like he'd noticed yesterday, large in a roundish face. Pretty, but not a knock-out, she was tall and while she wasn't quite fat, she wasn't skinny either. Round, he decided, round and soft. Marcia had been all skin and bones. Gary thought this morning that he liked round better.

She glanced away from the window, catching him staring at her. Gary blushed. Not wanting her to feel threatened, he quickly smiled and offered, "You like coffee?"

"Yes.... no..." Confused, she closed her eyes. Then, opening them, replied confidently, "Yes, with cream and sugar."

Gary smiled again, gesturing with the paper he still held in his right hand.

"That's great, you- you remember something." She stared at him, then flashed a brief smile. But the smile did nothing to relieve the fear haunting her eyes.

"You don't know who I am, do you?"

Gary shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. I don't. You- you don't remember anything new this morning?" He had hoped she'd wake up this morning with at least some of her memory back.

Her face fell as she shook her head. "This morning, as-as I was waking up, it was like I could almost see another room, hear a voice talking to me. But it was never very clear, and when I woke up completely there wasn't a name or anything left to hold on to." Hugging the purring cat closer to her, she turned to stare mutely out the window again.

Gary hesitated, then headed for the coffee machine. What he found himself wanting to do, surprisingly enough, was go give her a hug - comfort her somehow, but he couldn't make himself feel comfortable taking another man's wife in his arms, no matter how altruistic his reasons. The cat, seeing him near the source of food, wriggled down from his cozy roost in the woman's arms to come over and rub around Gary's feet, almost tripping him up.

"Hey, be patient, you'll get yours." Coffee on, he found a can of cat food and started to open it, glancing over at his guest again. She hadn't moved, still staring out the window, rubbing her arms and shivering slightly. Frightened, he realized, then silently upbraided himself. Who wouldn't be, waking up in some strange place, with a strange man, not knowing who you were or what was going to happen to you? And he, what did he do? Stared at her like a 12-year-old with his first crush, then couldn't think of anything to say except "What don't you remember?" and "Want some coffee?" .

How lame can you get, Gar? He put the cat's bowl down on the floor, considering his next move. His stomach rumbled loud enough to get her attention, with another brief smile. Gary grinned back.

"Look, I usually just get something to eat in the kitchen downstairs. Why don't we go down there and I'll make up some eggs or something. There won't be anybody else around for a while yet."

Hesitating, she closed her eyes briefly before turning and nodding at him. Gesturing at his clothes she was still wearing, she lifted one eyebrow and enquired, "Do you think you could show me where the washing machine is?"

**********************************************

"Gary?"

He popped his head out of the back room where the washer was and called out, "Yeah, in here, Marissa!"

Marissa appeared in the door with Spike as Gary finished putting the load in the dryer.

"Laundry? On a Saturday morning? Nothing better to do today?" Marissa's smile took the sting out of her words, and Gary laughed.

"Yeah, well not much to do today, actually." Gary took Marissa's arm and steered her back out in the bar, toward the office and the stairs up to his loft. "There is one thing, well two things, and I, um, I kind of need your help." He paused and looked around as the door opened, waiting to see who it was before he continued in a whisper.

"See, there's this girl, and she's upstairs and she -" Marissa's eyebrows arched in surprise, but she waited patiently for Gary to finish. Gary nodded at the two day shift cooks who had just come in the front door. He waited until they went by, then pulled Marissa toward the office again.

"The paper sent me to her, twice, yesterday. She doesn't know who she is or where she's from, and she's kind of nervous, and I- I- well there's something I need to go do and --"

"You need someone other than Chuck to stay with her." Marissa finished for him.

Gary grinned and nodded, then remembered who he was talking to.

"Yeah. I thought maybe you could talk to her, see if maybe - maybe you could help her remember something. Nothing I've done seems to help." They were at the door to his loft, now, and Gary opened it and escorted Marissa in. His guest -- he really was going to have to come up with something to call her - was huddled in the corner of the couch, clutching a passive cat. Like a hunted doe, she threw her head up when the door opened, every line of her body taut with fear. Letting out her breath with a relieved sigh when she saw him coming through, Gary saw the panic beginning in her eyes as she noticed Marissa. He hastened to explain.

"There's something I- well I have somewhere to go and I won't be long but I thought you'd rather have someone to stay with, and this is my friend--"

Marissa stepped forward, one hand extended.

"Hi, I'm Marissa Clark, Gary's friend. And this is Spike."

The woman stared blankly at Marissa, and Gary began to be afraid that he wasn't going to be able to go anywhere today. He really didn't want to try to get Chuck to go and take care of the paper's business, that never worked well, and then Gary had to listen to Chuck complaining for the next week or so and -- he released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding as the woman slowly stood, and stepped reluctantly forward to take Marissa's hand.

"Hi. " She hesitated, not sure what else to say. Marissa, as usual, seemed to know exactly what to do. She might be blind, but she seemed to see into those around her more than any sighted person Gary knew.

"Gary told me you can't remember anything about yourself. It must be frightening."

The woman's hand went to her throat, the other clutched protectively around her waist before she nodded, then spoke when she realized Marissa couldn't see her.

"Yes. It is a little... disconcerting."

Marissa smiled, and made her way over to sit in Gary's chair.

"Did you have anything marked on your clothes, any jewelry or anything that might have a name or something on it?"

Gary stared at Marissa. Why hadn't he thought of that? But his guest was already shaking her head.

"I- I looked last night. There's nothing in my clothes but the manufacturer's labels."

"Your ring." Both women turned toward Gary as he spoke. "Your ring, the wedding ring you're wearing." He indicated her hand with a wave. "Sometimes people- sometimes they- they engrave their names or wedding dates on them." He had wanted to do that with his and Marcia's but she had accused him of being "overly sentimental." In the end, they hadn't bothered.

Slowly the woman took her ring off, and gazed at the inside. Then, without speaking, she held it out to Gary. Confused, Gary took the ring, stepping over to hold it under the light. His breath caught in his throat. No wonder she'd reacted when he told her his name.

"November 7, 1993. Meghan and Gary." He read the words out loud, for Marissa's sake. Now at least he had a reason why she had suddenly been so trusting after he'd introduced himself at the park. Gary looked up to find his guest staring at him with a pleading expression on her face. He sighed, and shook his head apologetically as he handed the ring back to her.

"No, I'm sorry, it's not me. I'd never seen you before yesterday." Just like she had yesterday on the park bench, she deflated, somehow appearing to fold in on herself without moving. The cat appeared suddenly, mrreow-ing and curling about her legs. She picked it up and cuddled it as she slumped down onto the couch. Gary just stared at her, helpless.

"So we don't really know anything we didn't know before." Her voice was as dead as her eyes had become. She held the ring out before her while she stroked the purring cat in her lap.

"Sure we do." Marissa's voice startled them both. "We know your name." She held out her hand toward the woman seated on Gary's couch. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Meghan."


	3. Chapter 3

Gary's wristwatch said 10:09 when he stalked through McGinty's front door. His hopes of getting upstairs to his loft to wash and change without being seen were dashed, however, by Chuck's low whistle.

"Look what the cat dragged in." Chuck eyed Gary's bedraggled form over the large sheet of paper he was inspecting at the end of the bar, then sniffed twice, doubtfully. "My, my, my, what have we been playing in?"

Gary glared at Chuck. "Very- very funny."

Setting his paper aside, Chuck came around the end of the bar to stop a few feet in front of his friend, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting a speculative eyebrow. "Well? Uncle Chuck is waiting."

Gary wagged a partially shredded and torn paper at his friend, and demanded, "Do- do you know how big a Great Pyrenees gets?"

Chuck grinned. "No, but I'll bet you do."

"Yeah, well, it's not a dog, it's a - it's a freakin' horse!" Gary's irritation with his latest adventure, courtesy the Early Edition, was outdone only by the mud and pawprints splattered over his entire body. "I was barely able to keep the dumb mutt from running into the street. Then it tackles me into the only puddle for 5 blocks and stomps all over me while it slobbers on me. Then the kid tells me to quit messing with his dog, and he starts yelling for his Dad, and then --" Gary, practically yelling himself by now, broke off as a couple of heads peeked out between the kitchen doors. The busboy and the prep cook ducked back into the kitchen as he gave them what he hoped was a "Get back to work" glare, and Gary turned back to face Chuck at his most insufferable, dancing up and down on his toes and smirking in glee.

"Yeah, *you* can laugh." Gary growled. "I almost got arrested for trying to save the damn dog. Next time -" he threatened the ceiling with the tattered paper, "next time I'm just gonna let the damn dumb beast get splatted!"

Chuck pointed at Gary's feet.

"Yeah, well this time you're dripping mud all over my clean floor, and we open in-" he checked his watch "- 45 minutes."

Gary made a face at his friend. "Yeah, well, I'm goin'; I'm goin'." Hitching his shoulders inside his jacket, he turned toward the office. Chuck's voice halted him just as he opened the door.

"Hey, Gar! Just a minute!" Chuck grabbed the large sheet of paper he'd been perusing when Gary came in and hurried over to where an impatient Gary waited with the office door half open. Pausing dramatically, Chuck's eyebrows went up again, encouragingly, as he enquired, "So, what about last night?"

Gary stared warily at Chuck.

"Wha- what do you mean, about last night?"

Chuck looked shocked. "What do I mean? What do I mean?" He leaned forward conspiratorially and put one arm on Gary's shoulder, careful to check for a clean spot as he did so. He whispered, "I mean, dining in for two. I mean, hot chowder and hot cider, for two. I mean two warm bodies in one room. I-"

Annoyed, Gary jerked his shoulder out from under Chuck's arm, and headed through the office toward the stairs, Chuck at his heels.

"Nothing happened."

"Come on, Gar, you can tell me. I'm your best friend, remember?"

"Nothing happened."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." Exasperated, Gary stopped halfway up the stairs and, turning on Chuck, hissed, "She's- she's got amnesia, she was half frozen, and- and she's married, for Pete's sake!"

Chuck's blue eyes mocked Gary solemnly.

"Yeah, I know. Didn't think you had it in you, pal."

"Didn't think-- didn't think -- You are sick, you know? Sick!"

"Yeah, but you can't deny it didn't cross your mind. I know, it crossed mine. You don't have to have a gorgeous face to be gorgeous en toto." Chuck's eyebrows lifted appreciatively as he traced a curvaceous shape in the air with his hands and his eyes. Gary, on his way up again, had stopped to stare at his friend suspiciously.

"You - you saw her? You met Meghan?" He came back down the few steps necessary to stand over Chuck threateningly, emphasizing his words with his finger shaking directly under Chuck's nose. "Look, Chuck, you just- you just listen to me. That girl's in trouble, she's sick, and she's- she's in no condition for you to be trying any of your games with her. You just --"

Chuck stood up straight and crossed his arms across his chest, his blue eyes glaring back indignantly over the tip of Gary's finger.

"Geez, Gar, I know what condition she's in. Question is, do you?"

"Huh?" Gary's confusion was evident.

Chuck motioned Gary closer, then whispered in his ear, "Marissa thinks she's preggers." Gary stared at Chuck in openmouthed shock, while Chuck re-crossed his arms and stared back, triumphantly.

Gary pointed back over his shoulder toward the door to his apartment. "Pre- preg- pregnant? You think she's pregnant? How -- what --"

Chuck nodded contentedly, then continued in his best gossipy tone. "Yeah. She threw up all her breakfast after you left, twice. I told Marissa maybe it was your cooking, but she said no, you'd have poisoned yourself by now if that was the case." Grinning, Chuck watched as Gary continued to flounder for something to say. "You know, Gar, you do that mother hen thing really well. Yeah, your Mom'd be proud of you." Gary shot Chuck a disgusted look, which he cheerfully ignored.

"How- how far along?" Gary finally managed.

Chuck shrugged. "Marissa thinks only about 4 months. Meghan doesn't know. We asked."

Gary stared bleakly at the paper in his hand. Pregnant? Oh my God... His stomach turned over and he closed his eyes. When he thought about what would have happened if he hadn't had the paper, if he hadn't gotten to her in time--

Don't. Don't even go there, Gary. That's why you get the paper, after all, isn't it? So you can prevent the bad things, and help make happy endings for everyone? Yeah, so then why do I feel so helpless this time?

"Gary? Gar? Hey, you okay?" Chuck's voice - all teasing gone - broke into his reverie. Gary nodded, then met Chuck's anxious gaze.

"I- I was just thinking about what the paper said was going to happen if I --" he broke off, swallowing.

Chuck took a deep breath and cuffed Gary's shoulder sympathetically.

"Yeah, well that's why you get the paper and go out every day to be Wonder Boy, right? To take care of all the little lost Meghans and Rachels and Tommys out there."

"Yeah, well if that's the case, why doesn't this--" Gary angrily shoved the paper in Chuck's face "-- tell me something that will really help her, like who she is and where she's from? As it is, I don't know what to do to even begin to help her."

Chuck pushed the paper back at Gary.

"Yeah, well maybe the reason the paper doesn't say anything is because you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing for her. Maybe she just needs a safe place to stay until she can get her memory back or someone comes to find her."

"Maybe, maybe... It just seems like there should be more that I could do --"

"Look, right now you can't do anything more for her, but she can do something for us. You remember those new menus we ordered? The fancy schmancy ones?" Chuck, having decided a change of subject was definitely in order, waved the sheet of paper he had been holding throughout their conversation in his friend's uncomprehending face. "They came in this morning, and boy, are they screwed up. That's how I met your Meghan. I came up to show you, and Marissa told me you were gone. So I was telling her all about it, when your guest comes up and takes a look and starts telling me how right I am and whoever did this had no sense of style and whatever." Gary frowned. He had chosen the layout for the new menus, from the canned ones available at the printer, admittedly, but he didn't think it was that bad. Chuck was still talking.

"...she starts drawing on the back of it and then I asked her if she could do a real one, and she sent me out for supplies and, well, she's working on the real thing for us now. Pretty cool, huh?" Chuck offered the sheet of paper to Gary with a pleased grin.

Gary could see why Chuck was pleased. The new menus they had ordered were nice, but they were just your basic menu. This... this was classy. "McGinty's" was lettered large in stylish calligraphy, with intricate graphic knots and graceful lines bordering the page. The menu lettering was brief, only indicating what the finished product would be, but it was all in that same classy, readable calligraphy.

"Wow." Not brilliant, but it was the truth.

"Yeah, and that's just the rough draft." Chuck was definitely pleased with himself. "What's really cool is all that Celtic stuff is really big, I mean *really* big right now. And with a name like McGinty's, Meghan said we should have an Irish look to our stuff and she--"

"Wait-- wait -- just wait a minute." Gary pointed a skeptical finger at the paper in his hand. "You mean she can remember how to do all this, but not her name or her address or anything else like that?"

"Marissa says it's typical of psychological amnesias. Said working on this, since she seemed to know so much about it, might help her remember more important things."

"Psych-- psychological amnesia?" Gary gave up. He slapped the sample menu back at Chuck. "I'm gonna- I'm just gonna go get a shower, and get cleaned up now. Okay? I don't want to talk about any of this anymore. I just want to go get warm and clean and dry."

"Yeah, you go do that, Gar. I'll go clean up your mess before paying customers slip on it. Oh, and, hey, don't forget to wash your face. There's a big, well, you'll see." Cheerfully ignoring Gary's answering scowl, Chuck trotted down the stairs towards the office.


	4. Chapter 4

Gary set a large glass of milk on the counter while he rummaged in the small fridge under the bar for a beer. Finding the brand he wanted, he opened it and, snagging the glass in his other hand, headed around the bar towards the office and the stairs to the loft. The night was late, and Meghan had been hard at work all day. The new McGinty's menu was looking good, and this afternoon she had started on the beer list. Due to her nausea she wasn't eating much, however, and Gary was hoping with the milk the sandwich she'd finally tried for supper would sit easier in her stomach.

The paper had been strangely silent for the last three days. Not just about Meghan, but about lots of things. It had been the easiest time Gary could remember since the paper first came to him. It bothered him at first, but as he focused more on Meghan he worried less and less about the strange quietude of the paper. And, in spite of her skittishness, Meghan was a pleasant companion. At least, as long as Gary was nearby. It had been obvious when Gary got back from the dog fiasco Saturday morning that *he* was the one Meghan was relying on to help her keep an even keel in the unknown waters she found herself navigating. Uncomfortable downstairs when any of McGinty's staff were around, she panicked at the thought of being alone even briefly in his apartment. Chuck and Marissa were accepted as temporary companions when Gary had to be gone, but she paced and fretted and bordered on nervous hysteria until his return. "Like Princess Di at a paparazzi convention," had been Chuck's tactless assessment this morning, after he stayed with Meghan while Gary averted a small disaster at a local dry cleaner.

Saturday afternoon, at Marissa's suggestion, Gary had coaxed Meghan out for a drive in Chuck's car. They had spent an entire tank of gas driving around Chicago, hoping something they saw would jog her memory. No lights came on in her darkened mind, though, and they ended their outing at Grant Park - also Marissa's suggestion - sitting on the bench where Gary had found her the night before, sharing hot dogs and laughter at the antics of the sea gulls fighting over the scraps they tossed out. Meghan laughed easily, and well, and Gary often found himself laughing along without quite knowing what was so funny. Later that night, he realized that even though they had supposedly gone in search of Meghan's memories, his own reminisces had been the topic most of their day.

Meghan was easy to talk to, Gary discovered, keeping her company for the long hours she was putting in on their new menu up in his loft, and not just because she didn't have much to say about herself. Meghan seemed genuinely interested in him, in *Gary*, in the events and people that made up his life, in the things that mattered to him. And, as time went by, it wasn't just her listening skills Gary enjoyed. Somehow they had established an easy camaraderie, a relaxed acceptance of each other that demanded nothing in return. His relationship with Renee was comfortable, but not like this. There was still too much unknown territory between them, too much left to say. With Meghan, it was as if it had all been said already.

Last night, Sunday night, after her inks and pens were put away, they had sat on his couch and talked into the wee hours of the night. Gary somehow found the subject turning to his luck - or lack thereof - with women: his marriage and divorce with Marcia, giving up Emma, and a little bit about Renee. Meghan had listened quietly, attentively, with a few astute questions and observations to contribute here and there. Gary stayed awake long after her even breathing on the couch announced her slumber, thinking about things he'd hadn't considered until tonight, until Meghan pointed them out to him. Drifting off to sleep, he briefly wondered why he could talk so openly with this woman, a total stranger. Marissa and Chuck had never heard most of what he told her tonight, though they might have guessed a lot of it. Gary sleepily told himself it was because they had never asked, and Meghan had. Besides, somewhere in the time they spent together he had ceased altogether thinking of her as a stranger. She was rather like an old and intimate friend, their two souls long linked in life and knowledge.

This morning, Monday, Marissa and Chuck had wanted Gary to call the police and check for a missing persons report on Meghan, but the panic arising in Meghan's eyes even as it was mentioned led Gary to immediately veto the idea. The paper would let them know where Meghan belonged soon enough, and he was content to wait until then. Chuck and Marissa hadn't liked his decision, but with the cat's proprietary attitude towards Meghan as evidence on his side, they had given in. For now, anyway.

A gust of wind rattled the windows, startling Gary as he hurried through the nearly empty bar. The thunderstorms promised by the radio announcer Saturday morning, had arrived in the last couple of hours, a day late and irritated about it. The night outside McGinty's warm glow was filled with high winds and lots of lightning. Tornado warnings were now posted for most of Chicago and the surrounding areas. Chuck and Marissa were waiting upstairs with Meghan, before coming down to finish closing. Gary hadn't liked leaving the final nighttime chores entirely to them for the last three days, but they had all agreed there wasn't much choice. He pushed the office door open just as Marissa came out of the stairwell.

"Gary? Is that you?"

"Yeah, Marissa. How's it going?" Gary spoke softly, trying to avoid the overly-attentive ears of the nearby waitress. Speculation about Meghan was rampant among the help, and he didn't want to add any fuel to the fire. He and Chuck had fabricated something about Meghan being Gary's cousin and getting mugged in the park, but he didn't think too many of their employees had bought that line. Gary stepped into the office, gently closing the door behind him with his foot. Marissa found a desk to lean against.

"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about." Marissa's face was clouded. "Chuck's with Meghan. The weather seems to be making her nervous."

Marissa's concern was contagious. Gary half-sat on the desk across from Marissa, his beer and the glass of milk forgotten. "So, what's up?"

Marissa sighed, unsure how to begin - unsure tonight where her greatest concern lay: with the woman upstairs who had no identity and no life, or her friend's apparently growing involvement with that woman. Deciding the direct approach was best in at least the first case, she said, "Gary, we've got to get Meghan back to where she belongs. Soon."

"You know I'd-- you know I'd love to do that if I could, but right now, right now we don't have any idea--"

"No, Gary, I mean it. People with this kind of amnesia, something has happened to them that is so terrible they've *chosen* to forget who they are. It's easier than dealing with whatever it is they are running from. People like Meghan have been known to go out and start whole new lives. Meghan is an accomplished graphic artist. She knows how to use a phone book, how to cook, and how fill out a job application. She is fully capable of living not just the next few weeks, but the next few months or even years without remembering who she is or where she's from. The best cure for her is to go home." Rain slapping against the windows punctuated Marissa's last comment.

All of a sudden Gary wasn't just concerned, he was irritated, and he wasn't quite sure why.

"Oh, and you think, you think I'm keeping her here? That I don't want her to go home? What if that home is why she is the way she is? Did you ever stop to think about that? You didn't see that bruise on her head, or the ones on her arm." The milk in the glass slopped out over Gary's hand and onto the floor as he gestured angrily with it. "Maybe the paper doesn't want her to go home because she's safer here with me!" He looked at his hand in disgust, then set both milk and beer down on the desk. Looking around for something to clean up the mess, he headed back out into the bar long enough to grab some napkins.

Marissa just stood there, trying to assess Gary's mood.

Regretting his outburst almost as fast as it had spewed forth, Gary finished his cleanup, then tossed the sopping napkins into the garbage. One hand in his back pocket, Gary hesitated , then said softly, "I- I- I'm sorry, Marissa, I didn't mean to snap at you like that."

"It's alright, Gary. It's been a long three days for all of us."

"Yeah." Gary picked up his beer and took a long swig, avoiding Marissa's eyes even though he knew she couldn't see him. Sometimes Marissa's ability to see things beyond ordinary sight unnerved him, and he wasn't sure he wanted her peering into his thoughts right now. But he gave her his full attention when she spoke again.

"Gary, I know you don't really think Meghan's from an abusive home. She could have run her car off the road or tripped and fallen. There are lots of places she could have picked those bruises up. If she is in a bad situation, we can deal with that when we find out for sure. But, for right now, if yo-- if we really want to help her, we've *got* to get her home."

Gary turned away from his friend, moving across the office to lean on his arm against a window. Taking another long pull on his beer, he stared at the rivulets of rain running down the outside of the window and tried to sort out his own thoughts and feelings. He knew he was being unreasonable, but he couldn't seem to help himself. Was it because he felt so helpless to do anything for Meghan? No, the truth was right now he didn't want to do anything to get her home. He wanted her to stay here, for a while, anyway. Why? The window lit up and then rattled as the thunderstorm outside intensified, the sound of the wind-driven rain against it more like pebbles hitting. Watching the abstract pattern the runnels of rain made merge and change with each howling gust and brief flash of lightning, Gary realized he knew the answer to that question. He just didn't want to admit it - to anyone, including himself .

Beer forgotten in his hand, eyes closed, Gary finally let the thoughts have play that had been lurking in the back of his mind since last night: With Meghan, for the first time he could remember in two years, the aching despair he had felt since he realized just how wrong things had gone with Marcia - that same despair that fed his bone-deep fear the past would only repeat with Renee - had been eased. Plopped into his life out of nowhere - like the paper that first fateful morning at the Blackhawk - Meghan not only needed him desperately, she accepted him, just as himself. Gary Hobson, reluctant hero and all-around average guy, just-trying-to-do-the-right-thing-and-find-a-little-happiness-along-the-way, was good enough for Meghan when he hadn't been good enough for any of the other women in his life. Even in the time he and Renee had spent together, she had yet to make him feel as comfortable and accepted as Meghan had in just a couple of days. And, he couldn't be comfortable with Renee until she knew and accepted the truth about the paper.

But, attractive as she was, and comfortable as her presence might be, Meghan still belonged with another man, and Gary wouldn't - couldn't - cross that line. A picture of Renee on their last date crowded in on his thoughts. Out of town for the last couple of weeks, she would be back. After their first inauspicious meeting, Gary had decided Renee might be the chance for happiness he thought had passed him by when he and Marcia divorced. But, if he really thought Renee was his key to future happiness, why had he so willingly slipped into the shoes Meghan put out for him to fill?

Gary stared out once again into the storms outside McGinty's, reluctantly facing the answer to that question too. With her assumed intimacy, her easy acceptance of him and his life, Meghan had walked right past his inner defenses, reached into his heart and gathered up all his broken hopes and dreams into herself. Companionship. Intimacy. Stability. Even - with her pregnancy - children. All the intangibles that he thought made life worth living. Things that as a young man, a newly married man, he had just assumed would come his way. Things that now he often wondered if he would ever have. Someone to share his days and nights with, to share his joys and sorrows, his triumphs - and defeats. Someone who was interested in all the little details of his day, the way Meghan had been the last 3 days. Someone to have and to hold, to raise a family with. In Meghan's fantasy, his dreams, too, were complete - however illusory that completion was.

Oblivious to his own need, he had followed her lead the whole way, eating up her assumed intimacy like a starving puppy, happy to pretend - for a little while - that his life had turned out the way he always dreamed it would, savoring the emotional intimacy he found with Meghan as the hours had slipped by. Now, like any baby with its favorite blanket, he didn't want to give that comfort up.

Marissa waited quietly, fairly certain now of the source of Gary's tension. She knew how lonely her friend was, despite the close companionship he shared with her and Chuck. But their friendship these last two years had been forged in the loneliness of their common status as misfits. She had always felt it was their disabilities that drew them together as friends to begin with. Hers was easy to spot: she was a blind woman in a sighted world. Chuck's was too: a too sensitive boy who had been wounded far too many times, grown into a man who used laughter and disdain to hold the sharks in the water around him at bay (though Chuck would have been mortally offended to hear himself defined that way). Gary's wasn't quite so easy, but the paper brought it out. He was too willing to save the world, at his own expense.

Uncomfortable in crowds, Gary had one of the most caring hearts toward individuals she had ever met. He could never have done what he did with the paper everyday without that heart. Marissa often wondered why Gary hadn't gone to medical school, or become a fireman, or found some other similar career. Though it was a mark of his willingness to sacrifice himself for other people that he even became a stockbroker. That had been Marcia's dream, his ex-wife. As always, Gary had sacrificed himself to make someone else - his wife, in this case - happy. And made himself utterly miserable in the meantime. Marcia had done him wrong in more ways than one.

Marissa wondered if Marcia had ever realized that what she found so appealing in Gary after she divorced him was the simple fact that he was living his own life now, and not the script Marcia had written out for him. Probably not. She wasn't that astute.

Straightening from her perch against the desk, Marissa also heard in Gary's extended silence just how entangled her friend was becoming with his mystery woman. She worried silently when - or if - she'd find the courage to say something to him about it. To warn him to be careful - before it was too late. Marissa wanted Meghan out of here, fast, before Gary got himself in any deeper, before Renee came back. But, her efforts tonight weren't going to accomplish that. Until Gary found something in the paper, Meghan would stay. Marissa had encouraged him to rely on the paper in the past when there seemed to be no other direction available. Now she wondered if she had been a little too insistent with that particular lesson. Maybe she could mention her concerns to Chuck. Sometimes his tactlessness did come in handy.

Gary shifted his weight, and the paper fell out of his back pocket onto the floor, breaking the momentary silence that had stretched between them. Gary had always appreciated Marissa's rare ability to just be silent when someone else needed silence. Of course, she could also be counted on to speak her mind when she thought it was necessary. Which she proceeded to do now as he bent down to pick up the paper. Neither of them noticed the cat that had suddenly appeared in the open stairwell door.

"Gary, I know how protective she makes you feel. She seems to bring that out in all of us." Marissa made one last effort. "But she needs to go home. Are you sure the paper doesn't have anything to say about her?"

"Yes, I looked again a while ago and---."

Chuck's hoarse shout cut off the rest of Gary's reply.

"HEY, GAR! I NEED YOU UP HERE, NOW!"


	5. Chapter 5

_"Meghan?  Meghan?"  She stirred slowly on the couch - the couch?- and turned toward the warmth of Gary's voice in her thoughts.  He stood, just inside the half open door, his face hidden in the light that streamed around him into her darkened mind -- the open door that was abruptly closer than it had been since her nightmares began.  Gary held his hand out to her, and, hesitating for a moment, she began to move once more towards the door, through the fog swirling about her.  A fog that was less dense now, less encumbering.  Suddenly, a ray of hope shot through her, and, all hesitation forgotten, she began to push her way through the thinning darkness towards the door that Gary held open, running now towards the light, the warmth that came flowing in with him, rejoicing as she reached out to take his extended hand.  She was really going to make it this time!  She was almost there, she could almost remember, she--_

Glass rattled sharply in the windows as the entire building shuddered abruptly in the gusting wind, and the door was gone, slammed shut in the roar of the gale outside.  Her world was once again inky black, the windows staring eyes, large and faintly gray in the wall of night surrounding her.  The cat jumped up beside her, forgiving after being unceremoniously dumped on the floor in her first lurch upward into awareness.  Her hands flew to cover her ears as rain now shotgunned against the windows, driven by the same wild wind plucking at the glass in each pale opening.  But covering her ears couldn't stop the wolfish gale howling around this brief refuge she had found.  The storms inside her mind began to rise now,  hand in hand with her certainty of the tempest's only goal, to get to her, to pluck her away like the windows, just as it had before....

      ****************

The first scream wrenched Gary out of a sound sleep.  By the second scream his foggy brain had cleared enough to realize that the screams were coming from the couch where Meghan had insisted on sleeping, despite Gary's best efforts to switch places with her.  Fighting free of his covers, he stumbled toward her in the darkened room, groping at the last minute for the lamp beside the couch.  Meghan didn't even blink as its warm glow illuminated the room.

Gary stared at her, the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up.  Dressed again in Gary's borrowed sweats, Meghan sat upright on the couch, knees drawn up tight against her chest and her copper hair rising in a staticky mass all around her.  She stared blankly into the night, eyes wide open, each blue iris a thin rim around a dark cauldron of pupil.  White knuckled fists were rammed against her ears.  There had only been the two screams that brought Gary to her side.  Now, she sat rocking agitatedly back and forth, keening a sound almost beyond human hearing.  It reminded Gary rather too much of a hunted rabbit's dying shriek, only this sound didn't end.  The cat was at her side, up on its haunches, kneading Meghan's arm with its front paws and purring loudly.  Glaring at him, it gave what sounded for all the world like an impatient mrreow.

"Yeah, well, could you be a little more clear with your advice?"  Gary snapped at the cat.  Meghan still didn't seem to have seen him.  At first afraid to do anything for fear of only making things worse, Gary quickly realized he was going to have to try something -- _anything to stop that unnerving noise she continued to make_ \-- or else leave Meghan trapped in whatever nightmare had claimed her.

Kneeling on the floor beside her, Gary gently tried to pull her hands away from her ears.  He called her name, softly at first, then more firmly.

"Meghan.  Meghan.  Meghan! You're alright. You're safe.  It's me, it's Gary."  The keening never wavered, and he couldn't budge her hands, not without hurting her.  Resting his hands on his thighs, he  sat back on his heels for a moment, not sure what to do next.  The cat jumped from his perch on the couch beside Meghan, landing in Gary's lap.

"Hey!" Gary grabbed the cat out of reflex.  The cat stood up in his lap, putting its paws on Gary's shoulders as it stared intently into his face, "Mrreow!"  Meghan still keened, and Gary pushed the cat aside to try again.  This time he put his face up close to hers.

"Meghan!  Meghan! Wake up!"  He tried to pull her hands down again.  There!  He was sure he felt a slight slackening of tension in her arms.  Gradually, his eyes never leaving her face, he pulled her hands down in front of her, then grabbed them in between his.

"Meghan!"  Switching both her hands to one of his, he touched her face with his free hand.  The keening stopped abruptly at his gentle contact, startling Gary almost as much as the first scream had. Encouraged, he stroked her cheek a couple of times, as she continued to rock back and forth, then, grasping her chin, he tried to turn her face toward him, willing her to break the rigid stare.  Once again, gradually, he was able to turn her head, until she was facing him.

"Meghan!  Wake up!"  He searched her face intently, looking for some sign of returning awareness.  She blinked suddenly, and then her eyes rolled up in her head, and with a shudder she collapsed limply against him, sobbing.

Awkwardly, Gary held her as she cried. In his relief at being able to snap her out of her fit, it was a minute before he realized her sobs had become  a not-quite-hysterical mumbling.

"...sorry so so sorry I couldn't hold on I couldn't hold mommy I never told I never did forgive me God please bring Eddie back please give him back I'll be good forever I'll be goo--"

The hair on the back of his neck stood up again.  If what Marissa had told him was true, it sounded like Meghan had been dreaming about whatever it was that had triggered her amnesia.  Gary wasn't sure he really wanted to know what she was talking about.  He gave her a gentle shake and pushed her away far enough he could look into her face again.  Her eyes were closed this time, freckles stark against her dead white skin.  Her lips barely moved as she chanted her apologetic mantra.

"Meghan."  Another shake, firmer.  No reaction.  "Meghan!" The shake he gave her this time was sharper, much sharper.  Flinching, her eyes flew open.  Gary was relieved to see confusion replace the blank stare, confusion that swiftly became dawning comprehension as Meghan stared first at him, then at the cat and the room at large.

"Gar- Gary?" She was trembling again, but she was aware of him at least.

"Yeah.  Are you alright?"  He hesitated, not sure which Gary she thought she was talking to.  "You- do you remember where you are?"

Her eyes closed as she thought for a moment, then gave him a ghostly smile, "I'm in your apartment above a restaurant you own but you're not my husband and beyond the name engraved on my wedding ring neither of us know who I really am."  She looked at him sideways. "Did I get it right?"

Letting go of her hands and sitting back on his heels again, Gary smiled in return.

"Yeah."

The cat jumped back up on the couch and wriggled into her lap, purring again.  Meghan ran her hands over her hair in a vain attempt to tame it, then gathered the cat up and closed her eyes, searching for the same calm inside herself that, for the moment, reigned outside in the night between storms.  Gary squinted at the clock over by his bed:  2:13 a.m.  Meghan was still shivering slightly, and he figured it would be best to make sure she was completely over her fright before they tried to get back to sleep.

"Um, you um, want some hot chocolate or something?"  He had the fixings upstairs now, thanks to Marissa.  Meghan nodded as Gary moved off to fill the coffee pot and heat the water.  10 minutes later, they were sitting at the table, their hot chocolate almost gone.  Meghan was still giggling after Gary's recitation of the reasons for Chuck's phobia about pregnant women; her recovery from the nightmare appeared complete.  Gary was reluctant to disturb her fragile peace, but he decided it would be best to ask his question now, before any opportunity was lost in Meghan's mental fog.

"Meghan, do you remember,  is there anything... Can you remember anything from your dream?  Anything that could tell us something about who you are?"

Her smile fled as Meghan hunched her shoulders.  She studied the remains of her hot cocoa without answering him.  Gary finished his cocoa, then took his mug and hers as she handed it to him silently, without meeting his gaze.  He washed the mugs out at the sink, while Meghan contemplated the table top, drawing some abstract design on its plain surface with her thumbnail.  As he sat down again, she finally met his eyes, and shook her head, her blue eyes dark now with despair.

"No.  Nothing.  It's the same as it was...  Friday?" she made the day a question, and Gary nodded briefly.  "...before you found me, and Saturday  morning.  There's a door, and behind it I know I remember everything about me.  I'm happy, I'm warm, I'm loved... I could even hear you - a - voice," she quickly amended, her face flushing as her eyes momentarily refused to meet his, "this time."  Shaking her head, Meghan clenched her hands together on the table in front of her.  "Then, just like before, the storm rises up inside me, and my mind is being torn apart, like I'm going crazy or something, and - and- the only way to survive the storm is to quit trying to remember and run away and then the door just snaps shut and disappears."  Her voice edged with frustration, she finished, "I just can't seem to make myself get past the storm to the open door.  I don't know what to do that will change it!"

Gary sighed, tapping the table with one finger.  Marissa was right.  If she was going to remember anything, Meghan needed to be in her own home, surrounded with familiar things... What could he do, though?  The paper had been less than helpful so far. He glared at the cat.  If you'd bother to be of any use whatsoever... he silently threatened it.  Getting no response from the feline half of his routine, he reluctantly got practical.

"So, so you don't, you don't remember anything new?"

Meghan shook her head.

"Okay.  Look, Meghan, I- I have a friend, a retired policeman, he works for me now and he can help..."

"No!"

 Gary couldn't understand her reluctance.  It had been the same way that first night at the park when he had wanted to take her to a hospital.

"Meghan, it's not like you'll have to go to the police station or anything.  He, he'll come here, and--"

"No!"  She shook her head vehemently.  "No, Gary.  I - I'll just leave, I've presumed on you long enough."  She smiled, and suddenly Gary could feel her pulling away, feel her severing the fragile emotional bond they had established.  "I appreciate--"

No!  He reached for her hand, refusing to let the bond between them snap - for Meghan's sake, he told himself.

"Meghan, you're not leaving.  For one thing, you don't have any money, for another you don't, you don't have anywhere to go, and you're no trouble--"

"Gary--"

"No. You're staying here until you remember something or we can find someone who's looking for you.  End of discussion."  Gary chopped the air in a "cut" gesture as he stood up, grasping her hand in his.  "Now come on, let's get some sleep."  Outside, rain began to rattle against the windows.  Meghan stared at Gary, a wild light in her eyes, and he feared briefly she was going to freak out on him -- like she had earlier with Chuck.  When Gary had come racing up the stairs in response to Chuck's frantic yell for help, he had found Chuck barely able to control a hysterical Meghan.  Chuck said he had no idea what set her off, just that her anxious pacing had suddenly blown up into complete hysteria.  Gary had been able to calm Meghan eventually, but Chuck and Marissa had taken some convincing that he'd be alright without one of them around to help him out.  Gary wasn't certain Chuck hadn't done something to set Meghan off, so he had been more than usually insistent that his friends leave.  Chuck wouldn't go without Gary's promise that he could return early in the morning with breakfast.  Marissa had an early morning class, but she too had insisted she'd be there later.

Irritated by their intrusion into his affairs -- the paper came to him after all, so he was responsible for Meghan whether they liked it or not -- Gary thought uncharitably that Chuck and Marissa both felt like he was getting way too involved with Meghan.  Pushing aside his earlier insight into his own motives concerning the woman in front of him, he told himself that he wasn't too involved.  She needed him.  He was, he was, well, if it had been their wife or their sister out like this, they'd have wanted someone to take good care of her until she came to her senses, wouldn't they?  He would have, and that's all he was doing for Meghan, looking out for her until she regained her senses or her husband showed up to claim her.  After all the ingrates he had rescued it was nice to find someone who appreciated his help.  Surely Chuck and Marissa could understand that.

Eyes closed now, Meghan sat utterly still for the few moments it took Gary to work his thoughts through.  Her hand warm in his, Gary's gaze softened as he watched her now, obviously struggling to regain control of her emotions.  How could he not feel sorry for her, lost and completely alone, totally dependent on the kindness of strangers?  How could he not want to do anything he could to help her out?   She was lucky he had found her before someone else with darker motives had.  Come to think of it, how well would he be doing in the same circumstances?  Unable to remember the slightest detail about yourself, stuck staying with a total stranger, no way to know if or when you'd have any of your life back?  She was actually doing very well, considering.  Her eyes opened and as she smiled at him their gazes locked.  Gary's heart leaped, and his throat was suddenly dry.

Slowly, he pulled Meghan to her feet.  They stood, facing each other uncertainly, Gary's pulse pounding so hard he wondered Meghan didn't hear it.  He caught his breath as Meghan reached with her free hand to softly trace the scratch she had left on his face three, almost four days ago.

"I never apologized for this."  She smiled ruefully, her hand still on his cheek.  "I'm sorry.  If I had realized..."

Swallowing, Gary shook his head.  "It's okay.  It's not that bad... You, you didn't..."  His voice trailed off as green eyes once again encountered blue ones.  Her dark blue eyes were a shade he had never seen before.  The windows rattled anew, another spate of rain driven against them by the rising storm outside.  Meghan jumped, unconsciously stepping closer to Gary as her eyes roamed the room nervously.  Gary shifted his grip on her hand to draw her in as his other arm went protectively around her.

"It's all right.  Don't be frightened."

Outside McGinty's, the lightning flickered as her eyes found his again.  His gaze never leaving her face, tilted now ever so slightly towards his, Gary bent to kiss Meghan.  Neither one of them heard the faint boom of thunder that followed the lightning seconds later.

Blue eyes closing reflexively as their lips touched, Meghan's mouth was soft beneath his.  Without stopping to think, Gary kissed her again, longer this time, his stomach tightening as her lips now responded to his.  With the third kiss, Gary's hand dropped hers, reaching up to brush her face before burying itself in the copper cascade of her hair.  His other arm wrapped about her waist, Gary clasped Meghan closer, his eyes closing now as their kisses began to run one into the other.  The soft, round firmness of her pregnancy pressed against him, but Gary didn't care anymore, not as her arms went around him.  In the last three days Meghan had given him all the intimacies a husband and wife shared - all but this.  Slowly, Gary turned them both towards his bed, claiming her fantasy for his own.

A huge chorus of thunder reverberated outside, and they both jumped.  The escalating intensity of their embrace broken, still Gary held Meghan while the echoing thunder faded.  Releasing each other reluctantly, they both stepped back, eyes catching awkwardly now.  The storm filled the silence that stretched between them as reality seeped back into the loft.

Then, flustered, Meghan pushed her hair back from her face.  "Gary, I- I -" Her apprehension now was as palpable as her earlier terror.  "I can't... I didn't... You're not--" Her voice breaking, she looked everywhere but at him.

Gary felt the flush creeping up his face as he stood, arms limp at his sides, completely and utterly appalled at his recent actions.  "I, uh, I know...  you didn't..."  The words wouldn't come.  He closed his eyes. _ What were you thinking Hobson?_  He knew exactly what he had been thinking, and Gary wasn't sure he could forgive himself for what he had almost done.  Opening his eyes, wanting to ease the tension that abruptly filled the air, he gestured with one hand, shaking his head regretfully as he did.  Earnestly:  "What I mean is, I understand, and, it's not, uh, if it makes you feel any better, I didn't mean for this to happen, either.  Okay?"  Gary waited anxiously for Meghan's response, catching himself before he stepped towards her.

"No. I mean, yes."  Meghan shook her head.  "You don't, you don't have to apologize, it's my fault--" Her eyes flicked across his, nervously, as she backed a few steps away from him.  Taking a deep breath, she looked up at him from a safe distance.  "Um, I'm sorry too.  I didn't mean..."   She tilted her head to one side, as her lips curved into another rueful smile.  "I guess you know what I mean."    Swallowing, Gary nodded, trying to recall Renee's face the last time he had kissed her.  But thoughts of Renee paled next to Meghan's glowing presence in his arms tonight.  What was that old saying?  Something about a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush?  He quickly abandoned that train of thought.  It had already come much too close to derailing them both.

"Well, okay, then, we should probably get some sleep before the night is completely shot."  The wind outside was growing more violent, and hail now began beating irregularly against the windows.  "I uh, I guess I'll see you in the morning."

Meghan nodded, and turned toward the couch, where the purring cat was ensconced in her pile of abandoned covers.  Gary headed for his bed, cold now after his long absence.  When they were both settled, she reached for the light.  Gary thought she hesitated for a moment before turning it off.

"You all right?" he asked, half sitting up so he could see her clearly.

Meghan nodded, running one hand through her hair to pull it away from her face.  "It's, it's just the storm.  I'm okay, though."  She still wouldn't meet his gaze.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."  Meghan didn't sound sure, but Gary didn't argue with her.

"Okay, well, um, good night."

Turning out the light, she didn't answer.  One arm behind his head, heart still racing, Gary stared at the night around him, trying to forget what had just happened.  How could he have let himself  go that much?  Pushing the memory of Meghan's soft curves beneath his hand resolutely away, Gary found his thoughts whirling as snatches of the last few day's events replayed in his mind: Chuck's confusion, as Gary held and tried to comfort a desolately sobbing Meghan:  "She just started freaking out about the wind, and kept saying you'd never come back, and I couldn't get her to calm down..."  His own voice, sharing with an all too understanding Meghan, her head bent over her work, earrings glinting in the soft light each time she glanced his way as he talked - and talked and talked:  "...I told him I thought he still had a choice, but I never thought... ...then we threw the money off the building and the cops arrested *me*..."   Marissa, looking right through him in that way she had as he snapped at her tonight... He smiled as a picture of Meghan rose, laughing uninhibitedly at something he had said.  Her nose wrinkled in the funniest way when she laughed like that.  Gary liked it.

Then other memories from other times intruded:   Renee, staring at him in utter disbelief as he tried to tell her the truth about the paper, "You almost had me there..."  His own voice, telling Marissa - how long ago? -  "I would never have known if I was just a substitute for someone else..."  Yet here he was, playing the substitute - *too* well tonight, he thought, guiltily  -  and gladly to boot.  How in the world did he get himself  into this situation... no, why in the world did he let the *paper* set him up like this?

A blast of wind shook the building, and Meghan cried out, softly, but Gary heard her.  His eyes narrowed: the *wind.*  It was the wind!  That's what was upsetting her, now, and before, with Chuck.  More muffled noises came from the direction of the couch.  Was she crying?  Gary hurried over to her side, switching on the light as he got there.  She lay in a fetal position, eyes screwed shut and a fist jammed in her mouth.  Tears were streaming down her face, and she cringed and shivered with every blow of the storm.

"Hey, hey..."  Gary sat beside her and - once more, without thinking - gathered the sobbing woman in his arms.  He rocked her back and forth for a few minutes, until he felt the sobs easing, though she still shuddered at every manifestation of the storm outside.

"Gary?"  Her voice muffled against his shoulder as she rested against him, he could barely hear her.  He leaned back a little to see her face.

"Yeah?"

Eyes still shut tight, Meghan whispered,  "It's- it's  not the storm inside my mind...  it's the storms outside... the wind... It's the wind.  I can almost see somebody... and the wind, the wind comes and he-- he's just gone, and I'm all alone.  That's why I got so frightened when you weren't here earlier and the wind started to blow so hard.  I- I- knew you were downstairs; I knew you'd be right back, but I couldn't stop the terror that I'd never see you again from taking over.  I was so afraid that I'd be all alone like before and no one would be there to help me.  I tried, I really tried, and poor Chuck, he tried so hard to help me, and I just couldn't ---"

"Shhh, shhh..."  Gary could hear the hysteria creeping into her voice, and he held her tighter and stroked her hair.

She rested against him for a minute more, then pushed away to sit up, her eyes wide with fright.

"Gary, what if- what if-"  She closed her eyes and swallowed, then tried again.  "What if my Gary, the one who gave me the ring, what if he's the one, the one the wind took and I'll never see him--" the despair in her voice was heartbreaking.

"Hey, hey, let's not get the cart before the horse."  Gary captured Meghan's chin with his free hand and held her so she had to look him in the face.  "We don't know any such thing, and there's no sense borrowing trouble, okay?  The best thing for you to do right now is get some sleep, and you and I, you and I, we'll figure things out in the morning when we can both think clearer, all right?"  And, hopefully, when the paper would have some useful information for him.

Childlike, she nodded, but when Gary started to get up she grabbed his arm, pulling him back down beside her.  He sat, staring uncertainly at her.  Meghan shut her eyes briefly, then looked at him apologetically.

"I, um, I know this is a lot to ask, especially after..."  Her eyes flitted around the room as lightning flashed and another roll of thunder boomed after it, shaking the entire building.  Shuddering, she looked at him pleadingly.

"I, I don't want to be alone right now...  With the wind, and all, I, I don't think I could sleep.  Do you, do you think you could just, um, just be with me - hold me until I fall asleep...please..."  Her voice faded as Gary stared at her, and she released her vise-like grip on his arm.  Trembling slightly, she wouldn't meet his gaze, rubbing her arms then picking at a loose thread in the comforter over her knees.

Gary was at a complete loss.  Didn't she realize what they had narrowly averted less than 10 minutes ago?  The cat jumped up in his lap suddenly, and Gary had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.  They couldn't expect him to do this!  Not after... what?  Nothing happened, after all.  Still, Gary hesitated.  As he opened his mouth, intending to refuse, lightning flickered outside, its thundrous accompaniment jolting the windows a second later.  Meghan flinched and shivered.  Her eyes huge in her face, she suddenly looked very much like a terrified and desperate child.  Closing his mouth, Gary considered her.  What had he told himself earlier?  Something like ‘How could you not want to do anything you could to help her out?'  The cat's "Mrreow" answered him, and he shot it a lethal look as he conceded the battle.

"Um, yeah, okay..."  Was he nuts?  Yeah, but what else could he do?  Neither one of them would get any more sleep tonight if he didn't do something.  "Just, um, just until you fall asleep, okay?"  Meghan nodded her assent. Sizing up the couch, Gary reluctantly realized they'd never both fit.  It would have to be his bed.  He could finish out the night on the couch once Meghan was settled.  Rising, he pulled to her feet again, grabbing her pillow in his other hand.  Silently swearing vengeance on a certain feline and it's companion tabloid, this time he led Meghan all the way over to his bed.

*******************************

_Gary dreamed that night of mystery women.  Mystery women with copper hair, who always walked away just as he caught up to them, just as he reached for them.  If he did manage catch one, she turned into Marcia, laughing maniacally at him before she flew away on invisible winds.  Then he'd find himself face to face with an irate husband, whose he wasn't ever sure, but who always looked an awful lot like his former boss Mr. Pritchard.  The guy wouldn't believe Gary, no matter how he strongly he protested that nothing had happened.  Mercifully, that part of his dream always faded before the husband caught Gary.  At the end, he found himself standing with Renee.  She gazed sorrowfully at him before turning and walking away, refusing to listen to his desperate explanations..._

**************************

The persistent rapping noise slowly tugged Gary up from a deep sleep.  He eased sandpaper eyelids open, wincing at the bright morning light that filled his apartment.  Trying to rise, Gary found he couldn't move his right arm.  Groggily he reached over to free it, encountering a warm, fleece-clad shoulder, and long hair... "Hunh?"  With a rush the events of the past night returned.  Geez, he must have fallen asleep too!  He looked over to find a slumbering Meghan curled up with her back to him in the crook of his arm.  She looked angelic; evidently her nightmares had ended with Gary's comforting presence.  Too bad he couldn't say the same.

His clock was blank.  Gary frowned; the power must be out.  The knocking continued, and now he could hear Chuck's voice in the hallway.

"Gar?  Hey, Gar, are you in there?  Gary!"

"Yeah, yeah," he mumbled, gently lifting Meghan's head to extricate his arm, freezing momentarily as she sighed and mumbled something unintelligible.  Snuggling deeper under the covers, she was still fast asleep, and he carefully pulled his arm all the way out.  Getting to his feet, Gary hurried to the door.  Chuck's pounding was getting more insistent.

"Hey, Gar---" His shout cut off  abruptly  as the door swung open.  Gary scowled at the cat running in beneath their feet.  That cat still owed him a chat, and a long one.

"Well it's about time."  Chuck held a food pack with 3 steaming cups in one hand and a grease streaked bag of donuts in the other.  A paper was folded beneath his arm.  He cocked an eyebrow  at Gary's rumpled just-out-of-bed appearance.  "Sleeping in, are we?  Must be nice.  Get ol' Chucky-boy out at the crack of dawn to bring you breakfast in bed--"

"Do you mind?  You'll wake Meghan up!"  Gary whispered, irritated, as he opened the door wider for Chuck to enter.  "And, if you'll recall, it was your id--"  Too late he realized his mistake.  Chuck strode into the room, halting abruptly when he saw the cat settling into Gary's all-too-obvious vacancy next to Meghan in the bed.  Chuck turned incredulously to Gary, but before he could say anything Gary grabbed the bag of donuts from him, whispering defensively, "It's - It's not what you think!"

"I don't have to think when it's all laid out right there in front of me."  Chuck whispered in return, leveling a steady stare at his friend.

"She had a nightmare and she couldn't, she couldn't sleep.  I was just gonna sit with her until she fell asleep and -- why am I explaining this to you?"

Chuck held his paper out to Gary.

"Because I'm your best friend, and I'm worried about you."

"Nothing happened. _ Nothing_."  _Barely_, he didn't add, and felt his cheeks flame.

"Yet,"  Chuck insisted, soberly taking in Gary's red face.

Gary glared at Chuck, then frowned at the paper he was holding out.

"What's that?"

"The paper. Your paper."

"My- my paper!"  Gary snatched the paper from Chuck, flipping it open with one hand to check the date.

"Yeah, _your_ paper.  The one that arrives at your front door every morning, with the cat. The one with tomorrow's news in it, today."  Chuck set the tray of coffee cups down, and folded his arms over his chest as he regarded Gary, his blue eyes somber.   "The one that you never leave lying around for me - of all people - to find. At least, not until the morning I come in and find you with another man's wife in your bed."

"I told you, nothing happened.  Nothing's gonna happen."  Gary threw the sack of donuts on the table.

Chuck cocked another eyebrow at his friend.

"Gary, this could get serious."  He lowered his voice at Gary's urgent gesture.  "Did you ever hear of kidnaping?  They'll lock you away for a long, long time if they decide that's what you've done. You should have gone to the police in the first place.  Saturday.  Look, I know you think the paper wants you to take care of her--"

"Think it wants me to take care of her? *Think* it does?" Gary whispered, hoarsely.  "It sends me to her twice in two hours, then gives me nowhere else for her to go for three - alright, four days," he conceded, as Chuck silently held up four fingers, but he didn't back down.  "What am I supposed to think?  Huh?  She wouldn't go to the police, I tried.  And the cat-- you've seen the cat, it's been all over her ever since she got here.  There has to be a reason for her to be here this long."

"Yeah,  long enough for you to screw up any chance you have of a lasting relationship with Renee.  Speaking of whom, what exactly are you gonna tell her if she should happen to walk in while you've got little Missus Muffet stashed over there in your bed?"

"Nothing.  Cause she's not going to."  Gary glared at Chuck belligerently.  But Chuck's concern for his friend overrode caution at this point.  Stepping closer, he stabbed a finger at Gary's chest.

"Look, I'm your best friend, and I'm telling you, Gary, you have taken a serious leave of reality here.  It's bad enough watching you have to deal with that," Chuck jabbed his finger at the paper, then pointed it back at Gary's chest, "all the time, but watching you and little Missus Muffet play ‘Ward and June Cleaver' has been downright scary."  Chuck nodded at Gary's startled look.  "Oh yeah, I noticed.  Marissa noticed, everybody noticed, Gary.  It's weird, it's not normal, and you have to get her-" he jerked his thumb toward the bed behind them, "out of here so you can get your head on straight and out of the Twilight Zone before Renee comes back."  Finished, he crossed his arms and stepped back, keeping a wary eye on an unreasonably - in Chuck's opinion, anyway - angry Gary.

Gary slapped the paper down on the table.  "I don't, I don't--You know, I don't have to listen to this."

"Yeah, I know you don't, buddy, but you should."  Chuck studied his friend's flushed face, and softened his tone.  "Gar, how long do you want to hang on to this little fantasy?  I thought real life was looking up for you lately.  You don't want to blow your chance for something really great with Renee on a few days' worth of warm fuzzies."

"Are you finished?"  Gary's body was taut with anger.

Chuck calmly returned Gary's irate stare.  "Yeah.  I guess I am."  Reaching for the bag of donuts, he lifted an eyebrow.  "I'm hungry.  You hungry?"

"No."  Gary took refuge in the paper as Chuck rooted through the donuts.  Picking it up and shaking it open, he scanned the headlines.  The banner headline read POWER OUT FOR HOURS IN AFTERMATH OF STORM.  Great.  That meant no business at the tavern today.  He could only hope that meant there would be news somewhere in the paper that would lead him to Meghan's real existence.  Because as much as he hated to admit it, Chuck had a point.  Especially if last night repeated itself - that was a sure recipe for disaster.  Gary shook his head.  Meghan needed more from him than he could give, and it would be too easy, far too easy given the events of the last three days - let alone last night - for him to take more from her than she had to give.  He had to get Meghan back to her own Gary -- before "nothing" quit happening.

He almost missed the headline, buried at the bottom of the second page in the Metro section.


	6. Chapter 6

Incredulous, Gary stared for a moment at the small point headline.

"Hey, Chuck, listen to this!"

Chuck, still digging in the donut bag, glared at Gary.  "What happened to ‘You're gonna wake Meghan up?'" he mocked in a stage whisper as he pulled a large chocolate covered donut out.  Half of the donut disappeared in one bite.

"Just shut up and listen, okay?"  Chuck shrugged, chewing on his donut as Gary read aloud.  
\--------------------------------------------  
MISSING WOMAN'S CAR FOUND

Aurora police Tuesday identified an abandoned car found within their city limits as that of Minter Wells resident Meghan Hudson, missing now for over three days.  The car was found on the edge of US Highway 34 near its junction with Interstate 88.  Mrs. Hudson's purse and other items were still inside.  No sign has been found of Mrs. Hudson.

According to Minter Wells police, Mrs. Hudson was on her way home from an art trade show in Chicago Friday morning when she disappeared.  She called her husband from a gas station as she was leaving Chicago, and has not been heard from since.  Prior to the discovery of her car near Aurora, it was feared Mrs. Hudson had been swept away in a tornado that struck the small farming community late Friday morning.

 Aurora and Minter Wells police are now looking into possibilities of foul play.  
\-----------------------------------------------  
Gary thumped the paper triumphantly.  "See?  What'd I tell ya?"

Chuck took another bite of his donut, barely chewing before he swallowed it.

"Yeah, well, what did I tell you?  I told you this could be trouble, and I was right.  Or didn't you notice the part about *foul play*?"

"That won't matter.  I can take Meghan home today, before the police find her car."   Gary folded the paper and tossed it back on the table.  Chuck almost choked on the last bite of his donut.

"You're taking her home? You are taking her?" Coughing, he stared at Gary.  "Are you nuts?  What do you think her husband's gonna do when some strange guy drives up with his wife?  ‘Yeah, your wife's been staying with me in my apartment for the last three days.  Oh, and we just happened to spend last night together in my bed.  Don't worry though, nothing happened.'  You think he's gonna just say ‘Oh, thank you very much?'  You think he won't call the police?  How are you going to explain that scratch on your face?  Gar, listen to me," Chuck begged, his voice rising.  "You've got to take her to the police and let them deal with it."

 Gary didn't bother to whisper this time, either.

"No.  The paper sent her to me, and it's my job to get her home.  If she needed the police, that's where she'd be.  For whatever reason, she's here, and she's my responsibility, and I'm going to see it through.  And that includes getting her back to where she belongs.  Now are you gonna help me, or not?"

"Where's Crumb when I need him?  He could talk some sense into you."  Chuck muttered, turning away from his friend.  He froze at the sight of Meghan sitting on the bed, cat cradled in her arms as she stared at them both.

"Uh, Gar..."

Gary turned, flushing when he saw Meghan.  He traded anxious looks with Chuck.  How much had she heard?

"Um, want a donut?  There's some eclairs on the bottom."  Chuck held out the bag of donuts.

Gary shook his head disgustedly at Chuck.  Picking up the the paper, he held it out as he took a step toward Meghan, still staring blankly at him.  "Meghan... there's, there's this article in the paper this morning, see, and it says that a lady named Meghan Hudson has been missing since Friday.  She lives in a little town outside of Chicago called Minter Wells..."  Gary's voice faded as Meghan stood up, turning away from him without responding.  He caught Chuck's eyes with his own, and indicated the door with a sideways jerk of his head.  Chuck nodded.

"Um, well, you know, I gotta go make some phone calls...the power, yeah, gotta see if I can find out when the power will be back on."  Dropping the bag of donuts back on the table, Chuck headed for the door.  Paper in hand, Gary stood watching Meghan until he heard the door shut, then he went to stand behind her.  Cat in her arms, she stared out the window at the fair dawning day, and he wasn't sure if she hadn't noticed - or was unwilling to notice - him.

"Meghan..."  She flinched when he spoke, and Gary sighed, swearing silently.  He should have known better.  He should have taken the paper and the donuts and shut the door in Chuck's face.   _Where's your brain, Hobson?_   He reached for her shoulder, stopping just short of touching her.  "Meghan--"  He shifted around to where he could see her face, his hand still half out to touch her.  She was crying.  Tears streaming down her face, eyes closed, she shook her head at him.

"No, Gary, you don't have to say anything.  I do.  I owe you an apology... a big one."  Reluctantly, she turned to him.  "I- I- I never stopped to think about you.  I never stopped to think what my presence here might be doing to your life.  I- I- I just felt so safe and comfortable here, with you... I couldn't remember anything, and you were so willing to take care of me, I- I just went with it.  I let my mind go blank and I didn't even try to remember.  It was easier to drift away and pretend you, pretend you and I--"   Shoulders slumped, Meghan looked away.  "And then last night, after we -- after I--"  She swallowed.  "You were still so- so kind, and I just...  I'm so sorry.  I didn't mean... I didn't think..."   Wiping her tears with one hand, she stared at the floor.  The cat purred patiently in her arm.  One hand clenched about the paper, Gary dropped the other hand to his side.  He wasn't sure he trusted himself enough to try to comfort her - to take her in his arms again.  He didn't know what he would say to her, anyway.

Straightening, Meghan put the cat down as she turned back to him, her face composed now.  "You don't have to take me home.  I'll find a way to get there, now that I know. Thank you... thank you for everything."

Gary searched her face for a minute before replying.  "No, no, no... Meghan, listen: you don't understand... I, I, I've been...  I, I, what I mean is..."  His hands came up pleadingly as Gary stammered to a stop.  His eyes caught and held hers.  "It was me as much as it was you."  His hands dropped to his sides as Meghan frowned, shaking her head as she opened her mouth to object.  Leaning toward her, Gary touched her arm, forestalling whatever she was going to say.

"N-n-no, just, just listen, okay?  Just hear me out."  She stared at him mutely, then nodded once.  Gary took his hand away.  Not a man who articulated his feelings very well in the best of circumstances, he hesitated, the paper still clutched in one hand, looking away from Meghan to examine the room around him, as if he hoped to find in the woodwork words to explain his thoughts and feelings over the last few days - to himself as well as Meghan.  Grimly, he acknowledged the cat as it came to sit at his feet.

_This, this is all your fault, I hope you know.  I *am* going to get you back one of these days.  You can count on it. _ The cat calmly began to wash itself.

As he met Meghan's anxious gaze a second later, inspiration came to Gary from somewhere, somehow.   Dropping his gaze to the floor, he swallowed.  "You, you weren't the only one who just went with the flow.  I told you what Marcia and I were like, together."  Meghan nodded as he looked up.  She was entirely focused on him.  Gary gave the paper a tiny wave.  "Well, I guess, I guess all this time I've been thinking that it was all my fault we broke up.  Chuck, he, he's tried to tell me it wasn't just me, and Marissa too, but I guess, I guess I wasn't listening.  And Emma... but she left me, too, f- for somebody else.  Then Renee came along, and I, well, I thought that I had another chance for happiness.  But lately, lately I've been worried about it all happening again..."  Gary's face clouded as he hesitated, and Meghan touched his arm gently.  Blinking away the haze of memory, Gary half smiled at her, shifting his feet and the paper nervously.  Her hand dropped as he went on.

"Marcia and I, we seemed so right together, at first anyway,  and then it all fell apart, and I never really understood why.  Except Marcia, Marcia, she always had an agenda, and I, uh, well I never seemed to fit with it.  And if Renee, well if she has an agenda, too, and if - or when - I didn't fit in with her, ah, with her agenda, I started wondering if she'd dump me the same way Marcia did, and I- I-"  Gary took a deep breath, and his eyes briefly sought Meghan's before he looked away, anywhere but at the woman in front of him.  "I realized I don't want to risk it -- I don't want to be dumped like that, not again, not ever."  The paper chopping the air punctuated Gary's statement. Staring out the window at the sunshine, he continued,  "Then you- you came along and you just accepted me...  as me.  Myself.  No agenda, nothing."  He smiled softly, turning and lifting a hand apologetically to Meghan.  "It was easier to jump in and pretend right along with you, make believe that we belonged together, than to think about what might happen someday with Renee.  At least,  uh- well, at least until last night..." he gestured helplessly, nervously and Meghan's eyebrows went up as she smiled ruefully -- just as she had last night.  Gary heart lurched, then he refused to allow the sudden memory of last night to stay.  Not again.  Returning a brief smile, Gary hesitantly held out one hand, growing serious.

"My life right now, right now my life, it- it sort of has its own agenda, and it's not something I can just walk away from.  But you were--" Gary groped for the right words, both hands out now, the paper forgotten.  "Wi- wi- with you, be- because of you, I saw that the right person, if she was the right person, she'd understand that - a- a- about my life.  She'd be willing to work with me, with what's important to me, not just what's on her agenda.  I wouldn't have to be afraid of her."  His eyes held Meghan's, willing her to accept his words.  "You've given me something I never had before.  You shown me what my life could be like, from the inside out, with someone who would take me for who I am, not what she can make of me."  Their eyes locked again, and it was Gary's turn for the rueful smile.  "Your husband is one lucky guy."

Meghan was silent, tears again streaming down her face.  Reaching up, Gary gently wiped them away. Then she was in his arms, and they held each other tightly.

"You gonna be okay?"  Gary whispered into her hair.  Meghan nodded against his shoulder.

"Well, I guess it's about time we took you home."  She nodded again, the cat's purr rumbling about their feet words enough for both of them.

********************************

Several hours later, a call to information had netted an address for Gary and Meghan Hudson, on a rural road outside of Minter Wells.  A phone call was the simplest solution, but, with power and phone lines down throughout the area in the aftermath of the night's storms, it proved impossible.  Plan B had been to stop off in Aurora and pick up Meghan's car.  Arriving at the intersection of the two highways, they had found three different vehicles by the side of the road, a blue Mazda Miata, a small Toyota pickup, and an older model Jeep Wagoneer with the wooden side paneling.  Meghan couldn't begin to say which one was hers.  Chuck voted for the Miata, while Gary rather thought the Jeep was more likely.  However, all three cars were locked up tight, and, as they had no keys, that route too had proved a dead end.

So it was on to Plan C.  Gary, Meghan and Chuck took Chuck's car and headed southwest on Highway 34, Marissa left behind to deal with whatever business would turn up at McGinty's.  The day, after beginning clear and beautiful, now started to deteriorate, a line of thunderstorms moving in from the south.  Chuck maintained his opinion that Gary was nuts to try to take Meghan home himself.  But, he insisted on coming along, to "pick up the pieces" when all was said and done.  Secretly, Gary was relieved, no matter the reassurances he gave Chuck.  Despite good intentions and often better results, his rescue efforts did not always turn out well for him.  Witness the Great Pyrenees adventure just three days ago.  While he hoped for the best, Gary wasn't sure what Meghan's husband was going to think when a stranger drove up with his wife in tow.

Meghan sat quietly in the back seat, nervously folding the hem of her blue sweater.  Gary had tried talking to her a couple of times, but she didn't have much to say.  She was nervous, that much he understood, and she was desperately hoping something they saw on the trip would trigger her memory before she had to face a husband she couldn't remember.  Surreptitiously, he checked the paper again.  The headline about her car hadn't changed.  Chuck glanced at him, then spoke, sotto voce.

"Nothing yet about ‘Irate Husband Beats Wife's Rescuer to a Bloody Pulp?'"

Gary didn't even crack a smile.  "No."  He shifted his shoulders in his leather jacket and stared out the window at the passing countryside.  Chuck sighed, lifting his eyebrows to his reflection in the rearview mirror.  This trip was getting old, fast.  Gary was in no mood for chit chat, and Meghan had been a lost cause from the beginning as far as Chuck was concerned.  Besides, the things Chuck really wanted to discuss with his friend he wasn't about to mention in front of Meghan.  Between the two of them, he and Gary had done enough damage there already.  He started to whistle tunelessly to himself, only to find Gary staring at him balefully.

"What?"

Gary shook his head, then pointed at the road.  "Just keep your eyes on the road, okay?"

Shrugging, Chuck gave up on whistling, and drove, willing the trip to be over soon.

********************************************

"There it is, that must be the farmhouse he meant!  Turn right, there."   Gary pointed out the window at the blue house near the main highway.  Just beyond the house, a narrow rural road intersected the highway from the north.  Only four miles from Minter Wells at this point, they had stopped at a gas station a bit further back to ask general directions.  Rain had fallen intermittently since they left the Metro area behind, and now, beneath lowering black clouds, the wind was picking up considerably.  Chuck found himself constantly dodging blowing papers and other debris on the road.  Avoiding a spinning can, he turned onto the narrow road. A half mile or so down the road, they drove past a small, dilapidated building.  Set back from the road a little ways, it was an old school that had definitely seen better days.  Several kids were playing on the equipment in the adjoining playground.

Another mile or so down the road, Chuck whistled at the skid marks now tracking all over the asphalt in front of them.  He leaned forward over the steering wheel to get a better look.

"Geez, what do they do for fun out here?  Play  dodge cars?'"

Gary opened his mouth to respond, but Meghan beat him to it.

"Stop!  Pull over, please!  Now!"

"What?  What's the matter?"  But a glance in his rearview mirror told Chuck exactly what the matter was.

Meghan, her eyes huge, terror stark on her dead white face, was practically climbing over the seat to get out of the car.  Gary tried to calm her, to get her to sit back down, but she refused to listen.  Quickly, Chuck pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car.  Gary scrambled out, barely getting the seat popped forward before Meghan came barreling out.  One hand was at her mouth, the other clenched in a fist so tight Chuck was certain she must be drawing blood from her palm.  Running a few steps off to the side, she proceeded to lose her lunch -- and her breakfast too from the sounds of it.  Chuck winced sympathetically, then rested his hands on the steering wheel and watched out the window as Gary approached Meghan.  She was standing with her back to them, arms wrapped around herself.  Her skirt billowed around her, and Chuck wondered how either one of them could stand up in the increasing gale.

"Meghan."  She blinked, several times, seeming to be returning from somewhere very far away.  Slowly, she focused on Gary's face.  She swallowed several times before she could speak.

"I- I- remembered something.  I was driving, here, down this road.  There was a funnel cloud.  It was coming down right in front of me, and I couldn't..."  She shuddered, closing her eyes briefly.  "I tried to pull over to the side of the road, but the winds were so strong they just whipped my car around, all over the road.  I- I- thought I was dead."  She reached gingerly for the fading bruise on her forehead.  "That must have been when I hit my head, and my arm,  cause everything just goes black for a bit after that.    The next thing I remember, all I could think about was the wind, getting away from the wind.  I, I just wanted to be somewhere safe, where the wind couldn't get me.  I was kind of dizzy, and my head hurt, but once everything stopped spinning, I- I gunned the engine, and drove away, as far away from the wind as I could."

"You think maybe that's how you wound up in Chicago?"  Concerned, Gary stepped closer to her. Meghan frowned, then shook her head slowly.

"I don't know.  That's all I can remember."  Turning to face Gary, she took a deep breath and gave him a weak smile.   "I'm sorry.  I just panicked, it all came back to me so suddenly."

"That's all right."  Gary's face crinkled as he smiled in return.  "At least you didn't throw up in Chuck's car.  I'd never hear the end of it."   Meghan's clear laugh rang out, and they turned back to the car, Gary grabbing Meghan's elbow to steady her as they leaned into the wind.

"All better?"  Chuck inquired as they climbed back into the car.  Gary shot him a look.

"Those were Meghan's skid marks back there."

Comprehension dawning, Chuck was for once at a loss for words.  "Oh."   Abashed, he started the car up.  As he pulled out onto the road and began to gather speed, what looked like a section of a barn wall suddenly floated out of nowhere to land in front of them.

"Hang on!"  Chuck swerved, managing to miss all but the corner of the wood.  That corner was enough, as they heard the sudden *pop* of the right rear wheel blowing out.  Fighting for control, Chuck pulled the car to a stop on the edge of the road once again, then he and Gary got out to inspect the damage.

"I hope you checked the spare before we left,"  Gary shouted into the wind.

"Nah, never thought we'd need it."

"Nev- never, never thought we'd need it?  That's why you carry a spare, just in case you do need it!"  Chuck shrugged off Gary's incredulous stare.

"Hey, I'm never that far from a gas station or at least some kind of  help, unless I'm somewhere out in the boondocks because of you."

"Very funny.  For that, you can change the tire by yourself."

"Well at least get me the keys out of the ignition so I can get the spare out!"  Chuck kicked the offending wheel as Gary opened the car door to get the keys.  Meghan had followed them out of the car.  Trying vainly to control her hair in the growing wind, she stared numbly at the dark clouds slowly overwhelming the sky above them.  Gary touched her arm reassuringly as he reached in for the keys.  He had left the paper lying on the front seat, and as his eyes caught the new headline there Gary's blood ran cold.

THREE CHILDREN FEARED DEAD IN TWISTER.  _One child missing as second twister in four days hits small community of Minter Wells._  Scanning the article hurriedly, Gary realized the children in question must be the children they had just passed, playing on the school playground equipment.  According to the article, the tornado struck at approximately 1:23 p.m.  Gary's watch said 1:07.

"Hey Gar, the keys!"  Backing out of the car, Gary tossed the keys to Chuck.  Reaching in to grab the paper, he turned to Meghan.  She was still mesmerized by the clouds, and he touched her shoulder to get her attention.

"Meghan, I- I-, there's something I have to go do.  You stay here with Chuck, and I'll be back as soon as I can."   He was stuffing the paper inside his coat as he spoke.

The look she turned on him was pure panic.

"No!"  She grabbed his arm in that same vise-like grip she had used last night, and Gary tensed.  He had to go take care of those kids.  Pointing over his shoulder, he opened his mouth to argue with her, but she suddenly let go of his arm.  Gary watched, puzzled, as her eyes closed for the few seconds it took her to reach whatever decision she was making.

"I'm coming with you."

Now Gary stared at her openmouthed.

"You- you- you can't.  I can't let, I can't let you do that.  You'll be safe enough here with Chuck, and I-"

"No."  Gary could see the terror in her eyes as she fought for control of her own mind.  She gave him a sickly grin.  "I'm having a hard enough time keeping an even keel in this wind.  I- I-" looking away for a moment, Meghan paused, then looked him full in the face.  "I want to stay with you.  Please."

He was running out of time.  Gary considered her for a moment, then nodded once.

"Okay."  He turned to Chuck, who had missed the entire exchange trying to get the spare out of the trunk.

"Hey, buddy, There's something I gotta go do, okay?"  He indicated the paper, and Chuck's concern was immediate.

"What do you have to go do in this weather?  And what about Meghan?"

"She's coming with me.  As for what I gotta go do, well, you'd probably rather not know.  Just wait here for us, okay?  Don't come after us, whatever you do." He held Chuck's gaze until Chuck nodded reluctantly.  Gary grabbed Meghan's hand as they took off, running back the way they had come.

************************************

"Damn!"  The playground in sight, Gary could see nothing of the kids that had been there less than 10 minutes ago.  Sliding to a stop on the edge of the weed filled yard, Meghan gasping beside him, he pulled the paper out of his coat, fighting the wind as he desperately sought information on where the kids might be.  There!  The article stated that the bodies had been found in a nearby field, buried in wreckage from the school, the children evidently having sought shelter inside the building itself.   Which meant right now they must be on the other side of the playground somewhere.  Suddenly, he heard them.  It only took a second to spot them after that, running up and down the teeter-totters, oblivious to their imminent danger.

"Come on!"  As he seized Meghan's hand the wind snatched the paper out of his other hand.  Gary clutched at it, but it was gone almost immediately, blossoming into myriad white blooms across the adjacent field.  There wasn't time to mourn it's loss.  Checking his watch, he pulled Meghan with him toward the children, almost falling down with her as she tripped and plunged to her knees.  Turning to help her up, his heart sank.  Hunched over where she had fallen, she stared glassy-eyed into the approaching storm, all color gone from her face.  _Not now!_  Gary was torn between protecting Meghan, frozen into whatever nightmare the wind had conjured for her this time, and the children, happily shrieking as they chased each other up and down the wooden see-saws.  Suddenly, Meghan's gaze broke away from the forbidding vista above them, and fastened vaguely on his face.

"Where's Eddie?"  She demanded, climbing to her feet and dusting off her hands.

Gary stared at her.  "Huh?  Wha- wha- what do you mean,  where's Eddie?'"

Her face contorted with concern, she grabbed his arm.

"He was right here, a minute ago.  You aren't supposed to be here.  Where's my Mom?  Where's Eddie?"  Gary was baffled.  Meghan didn't seem to notice, as she turned to run from the playground, ostensibly to go searching for "Eddie."  Hustling after her, Gary caught her arm and swung her around to face him.  She struggled against him, but he didn't make the mistake of letting go this time.  Instead, he put his face right down into hers.

"Meghan!  Listen to me!  It's Gary, remember, Gary?"  She stopped struggling, and stared at him, confused. *Well, that makes two of us,* Gary thought.

"Why- why are you here?  Mom wouldn't send you to get us.  Where's Eddie?"  Almost screaming in the wind, Meghan reached up to push her wildly blowing hair out of her face.  Gary still held her shoulders, and he stared intently into her eyes, determined to break whatever dream she was locked in.

"Look, Meghan, I don't know who you think I am now, or who Eddie is, or where your Mom is, but I do know that there are 3 little kids over there and they're all gonna die in about two minutes if we don't get over there to help them!"  Her face crumpled as he shook her roughly, but Gary didn't know what he was going to do if he couldn't get her to snap out of it.  He looked around anxiously for the kids.  They were gathered in a group now by the see-saws, one of them pointing to the south.  Gary, following the child's cue, turned to see a large funnel cloud descending from the sky.  His stomach dropped, and he turned back to Meghan.  Her glassy stare suddenly flickered, and she seemed to see him again.

"Gary?"

"Yeah, now come on!"  Releasing her shoulders, Gary dragged her by one arm toward the children.  Meghan gasped as she saw the approaching twister, and he spared it a glance as, heart pounding in his throat, he halted in front of the kids.  The tornado had dropped all the way to the ground, and was now spinning and dancing their way.

"Come on!"  He reached out to grab the smallest child's hand, and was completely confounded when the little girl snatched her hand away from him and hid behind her older sister.

The three of them huddled together as the older two children, a boy and a girl about six and eight years old, respectively, frowned at Gary.

"We don't talk to strangers, Mister."  The older girl spoke.

"Huh?"  Gary couldn't believe it.  Of all the times to -- He pointed behind him, to the southwest.  "Look, look, you see that tornado?  It's gonna be here any minute, and- and-"

Suddenly, the little girl noticed Meghan.

"Aunt Meghan!  Evan, it's Meghan!"  All three kids swarmed past Gary to surround his bewildered companion.  "Where have you been?  We thought you were dead!  Uncle Gary has been so--"   Gary cut them off.

"Look, look, we don't have time for this!  Come on, we have to get you somewhere safe!"

"The school!" a chorus of voices began to yell at him, but he just shook his head.  The twister was getting closer, and debris was beginning to swirl about them.  There wasn't much time.  Gary searched desperately for shelter-- there!  The merry-go-round!  He quickly picked up the youngest girl - she didn't shy away this time - and shepherded them all before him.  The other two children clung to a dazed Meghan's hands as they staggered through the whirling dust and debris towards the rapidly spinning disk.

"Get under here, all of you, now!"  Setting the child down, he grabbed the bars of the merry-go-round and dragged it to a stop.  Eyes glued to the approaching tornado, nobody had moved. "Move it!  Get under here, now!"  The kids scrambled suddenly, all of them squeezing under the disk without complaint.  Gary was motioning Meghan to go next, when the little boy's head popped out.

"Ethan!" he wailed.  "He went to find a way into the school!"  Gary's gut wrenched.  The second headline!  There were *four* children!  Fighting against the wind that wanted to push the merry-go-round into action, Gary looked desperately for the other child, nowhere in sight.  Turning to Meghan, he nodded at the merry-go-round.

"Come on!  I'll go find him!  You have to get under there and hold the disk still, or it'll take their heads off."  He could barely hear himself in the roar of the approaching tornado.  Meghan shook her head, her skirt and hair blowing wildly about her.

"No, no, I can't.  I don't think I'm strong enough; I couldn't hold it.  You have to, Gary."  Her tormented gaze held his for a moment.  "I'll go find Eddie."  She took off, stumbling in the steadily rising gale.

"No, hey, I can't let you do that!  Meghan!"  Gary stared after her.  "Hey!  You're looking for the wrong kid!"  Then the tornado, moving ever closer, gave him no choice.  Holding tightly to the bars as the merry-go-round began to drag him around in the increasing tempest, he slid down on his back next to it.  Feeling for the metal seams underneath the disk with his foot, he found one and quickly braced both feet against it.  Preventing the disk from moving took all his strength.  Meghan had disappeared, and there was no sign of the boy Ethan.  Grabbing another seam with his hands, Gary slid under the merry-go-round as three frightened pairs of eyes watched from the dimness of its shelter.

"Get your heads down!" he yelled, afraid that even under here blowing debris could injure them.  Then, arms and legs straining to keep the metal disk above them still, he watched alone as the world about him turned inside out.


	7. Chapter 7

_Meghan ran through the whirling dust, searching for Eddie.  Wind whipping her long copper hair across her face, she stopped to pull it out of her eyes, scanning the yard as she did so.  Doggone it, she could have sworn she saw him right here a minute ago!  Stamping her foot, she turned in an impatient circle.  Now where did he disappear to?_

_Something moved in the corner of her eye, and Meghan turned toward the house in the distance.  Mr. Robinson's pickup was pulling out of their driveway.  Ambivalently, she watched him drive away.  She knew Papa liked him, and Momma liked him a lot, but he had sure spoiled her and Eddie's afternoon.  It wasn't every day school let out early, unexpectedly.  Andrew, in sixth grade this year, had to stay for band rehearsal, so Meghan and Eddie caught the bus home alone, making big plans to resurrect the Lincoln Log fort Andrew's puppy had destroyed the other day.  The battle had only been half over, and she and Eddie had been in a heated debate about who should win, the cowboys or the Indians.  Still arguing when they burst through the kitchen door, they had lapsed into a confused silence at the sight of Momma and Mr. Robinson.  Meghan closed her eyes as she rubbed her right arm.  She didn't know why the two adults were standing so close together like that, or why Momma had dropped Mr. Robinson's hand only to grab Meghan's arm so hard it hurt.  She wouldn't let go, either, not even when Meghan started crying.  Her arm still hurt, though with it's own pain or the pain in the little girl's heart, who could say?_

_Turning her back on the house, Meghan walked on to the old barn.  Momma had shoved them out of the kitchen, telling them to go play out in the farmyard.  Under no circumstances were they to come back to the house until she came to get them.  Eddie was through the utility room and almost out the door when Momma, still holding Meghan tightly by the arm, stopped in the shadow of the washer and, bending down, grabbed her by both arms.  Eyes hard, she had hissed in Meghan's face, "You don't tell anyone about this, you understand!  If you ever tell anyone about this, something really bad will happen, and it will be all your fault!  You make sure Eddie doesn't talk either!  You understand?"  Meghan understood, alright.  As this stranger wearing her momma's face released her, she ran to the door where Eddie waited._

_Sullenly, they walked out of the house.  The afternoon muggy and hot, they hashed out the remainder of their argument lying on the soft sloping pasture just behind the barn, heedless of the gathering clouds above them.  Once the victory was satisfactorily divvied up between both parties, they started a game of hide and seek.  A cooling wind had come up with the clouds, and continued to grow, but the children were used to the wind; it didn't bother them.  Right now Meghan was seeking Eddie, and she was getting just a little bit frustrated at not being able to find him.  Standing at the corner of the barn, she slowly scanned the area one more time._

_There he was!  And, and, the silly boy, he wasn't even hiding!  How stupid did he think she was, just standing out there in the open loft door?  Just because it was up high, did he think she wouldn't look up there?  Something about his fixed stance made her uneasy, though, and she turned to see what held his attention.  Meghan's stomach lurched as she saw the oncoming twister, and she ran frantically for the barn, screaming her brother's name._

**********************

Swearing volubly, Chuck lay half under his car, reaching for the last remaining lug nut.  Of course it had stopped rolling just out of his reach.  Shifting further under the car, he squinted in the dim light to be sure he was aiming in the right direction.  He was gonna have a hell of a dry cleaning bill after this - no, Gary was gonna have a hell of a dry cleaning bill.  Mr. Hobson could foot this little adventure out of his own pocket.  Chuck was only out here because of Gary's unreasonable infatuation with little Missus Muffet.  If it wasn't for her, he would have been comfortably seated on his bar stool at McGinty's right now, and - assuming it was a normal day in their lives - Gary would be out saving the world, while Chuck made like God in his personal domain of the bar.  Yep, Gary *deserved* the cleaning bill.  Serve him right for dragging Chuck into this mess with him.

Catching the errant nut with the tips of his fingers, Chuck held his breath as he coaxed it the rest of the way into his hand.  "Gotcha!"  Trying to identify the sudden roaring noise he heard, Chuck lifted his head a bit too far, smacking his forehead on the chassis above him.  "Ow!"  He lay flat a moment and took Gary's name in vain a few more times, before sidling the rest of the way out from under his car.  Sitting up, he caught sight of the tornado just as it touched ground.

Eyes wide in horror, Chuck stared as the twister began it's destructive dance across the land.  He knew now where Gary and Meghan had gone, and why Gary had made him promise not to follow.  Nervously fumbling the lug nut, it caught on the second try, and Chuck wrenched at it with the tire iron, praying desperately Gary would be there when he arrived to pick up the pieces.

*************************

The tornado was gone.  In its wake reigned a strange, unearthly quiet, almost as unnerving as the roar of the tornado itself had been.  Gary slowly crawled out from under the merry-go-round, rubbing the cramps from his legs.  He, too, was silent as he surveyed the ruin around him.  The children followed him, staring with mute horror at the destruction they had survived. They were all of them covered with dust and little pieces of debris the wind had driven into their shelter.

The school was gone.  The playground would host no more happy children.  All that remained of the abandoned building was the foundation and a small pile of debris at the back of the lot.  The swing set and monkey bars were twisted into macabre sculptures, the see-saws torn asunder.  The only piece of equipment to survive the maelstrom was the merry-go-round that had sheltered them.

There was no sign of Meghan or the child she had gone to seek.

The youngest girl began to sob.  "I- I- I- want Mommy!"  Tears made little runnels down her dusty face as her sister picked her up and attempted to soothe her.  Swallowing, Gary turned to the children, just as Chuck's car screeched to a stop on the road.

"Gary!  Hey, Gary!"   A frantic Chuck jumped out of his car and ran toward them.  "You're all right!  Oh my God, when I saw that twister, I thought sure -- Where's Meghan?"  Gary shook his head, grabbing Chuck's arm.  With a sideways glance at the children huddled behind him, he lowered his voice to where he hoped only Chuck could hear him.  "I don't know.  There was another kid, their brother, and she went to find him."

Aghast, Chuck took in the devastation around them, then met Gary's haunted gaze for a moment.  He swallowed.  "Hey, I'm sure she's alright.  What's the paper say?"

Gary shook his head.

"I lost it, in the wind."

"Oh."

"Look, you stay here with the kids, okay?  I'm gonna go look for Meghan and the other boy."

Chuck eyed the disheveled children warily.

"I've got a better idea: How  bout you stay with the little darlings and I'll go look for Meghan."  Chuck sighed as Gary glared at him.  "Didn't think so.  Okay.  Should I call 911 or something?"

Already walking away, Gary pointed back at Chuck.

"Yeah, you do that.  Tell someone to call their parents."  He paused as the three children turned forlornly toward him.  "You stay here with Chuck, okay?  He's gonna call for help, and someone will be here soon to take you home."

The little boy looked at him fearfully, near tears himself.

"What about Ethan?  What about Aunt Meghan?"

Gary hesitated, then offered what comfort he could.

"I'm gonna go look for them now.  They're probably alright, somewhere close by, but maybe still hiding."  The children's disbelief showed plainly, and, given the damage they stood amidst, Gary didn't blame them.  "Look, you all thought your Aunt Meghan was dead once already, and she wasn't.  Just because you don't see them right now doesn't mean that they aren't okay..."  His voice trailed off, but the children willingly grasped his frail reassurances.  The older girl nodded.

"We'll wait here, Mister."

Gary nodded gratefully.  "Good girl."  With a nod to Chuck, he turned and quickly disappeared into the wide, raw wound gouged across the land by the twister.  Behind him, Chuck and the children kept a skeptical eye on each other.  Pulling out his cell phone, Chuck flipped it open and dialed.

"911, emergency dispatch," came the tinny voice in his ear.

"Yeah, I'd like to report a tornado."

***********************************

Gary hesitated at what ten minutes ago had been a line of tall cottonwood trees.  Now it was a mass of tumbled trunks, branches and limbs snapped and snarled around them.  Quickly searching through the jumble, he came across a child sized white tennis shoe.  Something glinted nearby, nearly buried in the dirt.  Shoe in hand, he quickly unearthed the item: one of Mehan's earrings. Clutching the bright golden trinket tightly in his fist, Gary sagged against a downed tree trunk, his worst fear now refusing to be put down:  even if Meghan had found the boy, they had been unable to find shelter, and were caught up in the tornado.

Still holding the shoe, Gary pushed away from the tree.  He carefully stowed the earring in his inner coat pocket.  A few strides farther on, he stood indecisively in the gap between two ruined trees.  Against distant clouds, the twisting black funnel could yet be seen, halfway up in the sky.  Heart sinking even lower, Gary scanned the wide path of destruction laid out before him. _Of all the times to lose the paper!_  Without it he had no idea where the twisting winds might have deposited one copper-haired woman and a boy.   The tornado's ruinous route led north-east, as they usually did, and everywhere there was the scattered rubble and debris of its passing: building material from barns and houses, ruined farm equipment, more trees...  Suddenly, Gary's attention was caught by a lone, uprooted tree, picked up and twisted and ripped in half before being deposited on the other side of the field before him.  In the tangle of branches on one end he could just make out a bright blue shape.

It took far too long to cross the field.  Breath burning in his lungs, Gary finally arrived at the wreckage.  Meghan lay huddled on one side with her back to him, beneath the interior branches of the tree.  There was no sign of the boy she had gone in search of, until, crawling closer through the web of tree limbs, he saw a child's white shoe protruding from beneath her hip.  Gary forced his way through the remaining branches over to where he could see her face.

"Meghan?"  Her hair covered her face.  Dropping the shoe as he knelt in front of her, Gary pulled it gently back.  Eyes closed, her entire body spattered with mud and dust, she looked as peacefully asleep as she had this morning in his bed.  Her arms were wrapped tightly around a 10- or 11-year-old boy, clad in jeans and a brown plaid shirt, his head and shoulders covered with the rest of her hair.  Neither of them showed any overt signs of life.  Tentatively reaching for Meghan's neck to check her pulse, Gary jerked back as the boy suddenly began to heave and struggle free.

"Hey, hey, be careful!"  Afraid the child's struggles would exacerbate any injuries Meghan might have, Gary carefully worked Meghan's deathgrip on the boy loose.  He didn't even want to think about the baby she was carrying.  Freed from her embrace, the boy sat up as Gary carefully dug his foot out from under Meghan's body.

"You all right?  You're not hurt anywhere?"  Huge dark blue eyes stared at Gary out of a shocked white face. The boy's hair was the same exact deep copper shade as Meghan's.  He even shared her freckles, Gary thought, then realized belatedly the younger girl over at the merry-go-round had the same copper and cobalt coloring as her aunt and her...brother?  It had to be, Gary thought, looking at the frightened face in front of him.

Swallowing the boy nodded, then shook his head.

"I'm alright, I think."  Gary looked him over once to be certain, then he and the boy both turned to Meghan.  "Is, is she dead?"  The boy's voice sounded shrilly in the silent field as he shivered next to Gary.

"I don't know."  Grimly, Gary reached once more to check for a pulse.  Her flesh was warm to the touch, and it only took a second for him to find the steady throbbing beneath her jaw.   "She's alive."  He traded relieved smiles with the boy, then turned back to Meghan.  A quick check revealed no visible injuries, but Gary was more concerned about internal wounds.  Breaking a couple of offending branches out of his way, he quickly unzipped his coat and put it over her.  As he did so, Meghan's eyes flickered open, and she moved, struggling briefly to sit up before crying out and grabbing for the arm she had been lying on.

"Hey, hey, take it easy!"  Gary caught her shoulder, easing her to the ground as she fell back limply.  Meghan stared blankly beyond him.

"Eddie..."  Her voice was a fractured whisper.

Troubled, Gary recognized her expression:  the same vacant look she had every other time she seemed to be losing the battle with the shadows in her mind.  Bleakly, he wondered if the tornado had completely severed Meghan's already precarious grip on reality.

"Meghan?  Meghan?"  He touched her face with one hand.  She flinched, and struggled to focus on him, adding head injuries to Gary's list of worries.  Shifting his weight he accidentally jostled her right arm.  Meghan cried out again, and Gary swore at himself as he checked her arm.  There was an unnatural bend in it, just above her elbow.  It hadn't been visible earlier because she had been lying on it.  Worried he had aggravated the break in freeing the boy, Gary realized there wasn't much he could do for her right now without moving her around more than he wanted to.

"Meghan, your arm is broken.  I need you to, I need you to lie still now, so you don't make it any worse, okay?"

Eyes closed, she didn't respond.

Gary swore again.  Studying the boy next to him, he considered his next move.  Ethan, uninjured or not, didn't look too steady on his feet.  Feet... He was missing a shoe.  Gary reached for the white shoe he had brought with him, offering it to the boy.  "I think this might be yours."

The boy stared first at the shoe, then at his half shod feet.  Reaching for the shoe without looking, he set it limply by his side, swallowing convulsively.  His face crumpled as he hiccuped, fighting the sobs that rose within him.  "She- she  grabbed me when the tornado started to pick me up and wouldn't let me go.  She held onto me even when the tornado threw us over here, and, and..."   His face paled even more.  Ethan closed his eyes, remembering his terror and struggling to control it.  "Now, my brother and sisters are dead, and Aunt Meghan might die, and it'll be all my fault--"

"Your brother and sisters are fine."  Gary interrupted roughly.  "And so far your aunt's still alive.  Don't go burying anyone yet."

Incredulous, the boy stared at Gary.  "You mean it?  They're alright?  Evan and Danica and Cara?  They're all okay?"  Hope and disbelief warred in Ethan's voice.

Gary nodded.  "Yeah, we hid under the merry-go-round, and they're all fine.  A little dusty and dirty, that's all."  Turning away from him, Gary took Meghan's hand, examining her pale face hopefully for any signs of returning consciousness.  He had done what the paper wanted, the kids were all fine.  So, why was Meghan lying here like this?  What more did the damn thing want? Gary didn't understand any of this, and he had nowhere to turn for clues.

Behind Gary's back, the boy's face crumpled again, this time with relieved sobs.

*********************************************************

_The voices above her were faint, reverberating through her stunned mind as if she were underwater, and they on land above her.  An open door at her back, Meghan's thoughts were now suffused with a gentle light, granting a peace doubly welcome in the wake of recent storms.   She reached for the voices, pushing through the fog still faintly curling about her.  So familiar, they sounded again, and she grasped anxiously for names that weren't quite there yet... Gary!  Her heart's sudden leap of joy was tempered as the man spoke again.  No, not Gary;  the voice didn't sound quite right.  Who, then?  The other voice spoke, a young boy... Eddie!  Eddie, she had found him, she held on to him as tight as she could, he was-- but the voice wasn't Eddie's.  Eddie, he was... he was a long time ago, too long ago.  Meghan struggled through the shifting sands in her mind, searching for solid ground..._

**********************************************************

Gary watched Ethan uncertainly as the boy wiped tears and nose with one sleeve, leaving muddy streaks across his face.  Unsure if he should send the still shaking boy for help, he didn't know what other choice he had.   Meghan appeared to be unconscious, but if she came to in the disturbed state of mind she had been in a minute ago -- he didn't think Ethan could control her if she became violent.  And, given past experience, that was altogether too possible.   With one last glance at Meghan's prone form, Gary came to a decision.  The boy was wiggling his shoe on, but he paid attention fast enough when Gary spoke to him.

 "Listen, Ethan? Is that your name?"  The boy nodded, and Gary continued.  "Can you find your way back to the school?"  The boy nodded again, and Gary spoke intensely.  "Okay, listen, my friend is there, he called for help.  It should be here any minute. The other kids--"

"What about Aunt Meghan?"

"I'm gonna stay here with her.  She shouldn't be moved right now.  You just go find Chuck - my friend's name is Chuck, and tell him exactly where we are.  *Exactly* where we --"

"Ethan?  Oh my God, Ethan?"

*******************************

Meghan struggled to sit up, ignoring the pain in her arm.  Ethan and a vaguely familiar man were looking at her worriedly.  The man's hand was on her shoulder, preventing her from rising.

"Hey, hey, slow down.  Your arm's broken.  You shouldn't move around too much."  He sounded relieved and concerned all at once.  Meghan had eyes only for the boy.  Her left hand shot out to touch Ethan's face.

*******************************

"Ethan!  You're all right!"  At his nod, Meghan closed her eyes, sinking back into the debris, tears running muddily across her face.  Gary, encouraged she was at least somewhat coherent this time, turned back to Ethan.

"Your brother and sisters are with my friend at the playground, by the merry-go-round.  You wait there with them, and when help gets here, you tell them exactly where we are, okay?"

Ethan nodded once more. Finishing quickly with his shoe, he scrambled away through the branches.

Gary's coat had slipped off Meghan's shoulders, and he pulled it up over her again.  Meghan opened her eyes, frowning in concern.  Glancing at the wreckage around them, she suddenly became agitated.

"Ethan?  Where's Ethan?"  Her voice rose in panic as she tried to get up. Gary's brow knit with concern.  Meghan seemed to be having difficulty tracking in real time.

"Hey, hey, whoa, whoa.  You've got to lie still."  She didn't object when Gary gently pushed her back; the pain in her arm seemed to have reestablished some tenuous connection with the real world for her.  "Ethan's fine; he went to get help.  Now, you, you just lie still okay?"  He adjusted his coat closer about her as she nodded. "Everything's gonna be alright."  Gary smiled encouragingly when he noticed her gaze resting dubiously on his face.

"Do, do I know you?  Who are you?  Where's Gary?"

Stunned, Gary could only stare back at her for a moment.  Swallowing, he said, "Um, well, um he's, he's on his way, okay?  Ethan went for help. They should be here any minute."  He hoped fervently that it was true.  "And yeah, you know me.... sort of."

She nodded again, closing her eyes.  Then, suddenly, "Gary?" she whispered, shivering slightly.

"Yeah?"  He grasped her hand as she held it out, his eyes searching hers.  She seemed aware of him now, but somehow... shattered.

"You, you brought me home, right?"

"Yeah. We didn't quite make it all the way, but you'll be there soon."

"Eddie..."  It was a plea, whispered so low Gary almost couldn't hear her.  Frowning, he bent nearer, just as the tears started to flow from beneath her lashes.  "He, he never came home; Eddie didn't come home.  Ethan..."

"Ethan is fine," Gary said firmly.  "He went for help, remember?"  Confused, Meghan was considering that when she suddenly blanched a shade paler than Gary thought a living person could.  Her eyes slid shut, and Gary, reaching out to brush a stray hair from her face, panicked.

"Meghan?  Meghan!  Come on, don't go out on me now!  Meghan!"

Slowly her eyes opened.  No longer empty, Gary was stunned at the pain boiling over in the dark blue irises.  Shuddering, she took a deep breath, then looked bleakly away into the overcast sky.

"I remember, Gary.  I remember... everything."

**************************************************

Gary rode with Meghan in the ambulance that arrived shortly after three county sheriff's deputies and a fire truck.  Overwhelmed by the tide of returning memory, she held desparately to Gary's hand as the paramedics and firemen carried her stretcher across the field.  At the school yard, nobody but Meghan wanted him with her.  Her immediate concern when a deputy's hand on his chest prevented Gary from following them over to the ambulance escalated abruptly into hysteria when they began to load her into the vehicle without him.  In the interests of keeping Meghan calm without having to sedate her, his presence was grudgingly allowed by the senior paramedic. The children were whisked off in one of the deputies' cars.  The remaining deputies split up: the dark, heavyset one making absolutely certain that Chuck was going to follow them to the hospital, the other, taller, blonder and slimmer than his partner, climbing into the front of the ambulance with the driver.

Nobody noticed the yellow tabby cat that ran out from under the ambulance as it started up. A fragment of newsprint - just a headline, really - fluttered by, dropping to the disturbed earth near the cat.  Tail twitching, the cat walked over and sat on the piece of paper, watching the departing vehicles in silence.

In the bustle of their arrival at the hospital, Gary found himself efficiently separated from the now unconscious Meghan.  As the hospital staff wheeled her into an examining room, his elbow was gripped by the tall deputy who rode in with them, and he was escorted down a nearby hall almost before he could protest.  "If you'll just wait in here, sir?"  It wasn't really a question, and Gary was almost propelled into the cramped office, half expecting to hear the door locked behind him.  A dingy skeleton on a stand grinned at him from behind a cluttered desk.  Barely visible in the mess, a sign on the desk read  Dr. J.H. Todd, M.D.'  Nearby were two leather chairs, one pushed back against the wall beneath a sealed window.  Large, gray metal filing cabinets dominated two walls of the office, their tops, like the top of the desk, covered with stacks of papers and manilla folders.  Outside the window a tree shaded a small expanse of green lawn.  In the parking lot beyond the grass, the afternoon sunlight was glinting off the cars as the storm clouds dissipated.  Furtively trying the door - it was unlocked - Gary walked over and dropped wearily into the chair by the window.

A moment later, Chuck was thrust through the door by the second deputy sheriff, Gary's escort standing just behind him.  As the door was pulled shut, Chuck looked at his friend in askance.  Gary shrugged.  Raising one eyebrow, Chuck then turned to examine their temporary... holding cell.

"I've got a bad feeling about this, Gar.  They're not exactly jumping for joy to see us."

Gary just shook his head and sighed.  His concern for Meghan rapidly being overridden by the uncertainty of their own situation, he once again wished futilely for the paper.  With it he would at least have had some idea what might be going on.  In light of the rude welcome they were getting from the local authorities, Gary was beginning to think he should have listened to Chuck in the first place, and let the police bring Meghan home.  Then she might still be alright, but.. then the children - her nieces and nephews -  would have died...  Gary scratched the back of his neck and, sighing, leaned his head back against the window.  Still covered with dust and debris from the tornado, his neck and back were beginning to itch abominably.  Add to that his interrupted sleep last night, the emotional letdown after the tornado, the stress of not quite getting Meghan home, and he was suddenly finding it hard to think clearly.

Chuck studied his friend in silence, then plopped down in the empty chair to wait beside him.

Subjectively forever, in reality they waited only about 10 minutes.  The office door opened to admit a tall man in a dark suit.  Pausing halfway into the room, he continued a conversation with someone in the hall.

"...what I want, okay?  Oh, and I want to know the results as soon as he's done."

There were assenting noises from the hall outside, then he pushed the door shut behind him.  Tall, with reddish-brown hair, the man looked to be in his late thirties. His suit wrinkled, and his tie half undone, he maneuvered his way past the filing cabinets to the other side of the desk to sit in the one remaining chair.  Once there, he silently scrutinized the two men across from him for an uncomfortable moment.  His eyes were blue, the same very dark shade of blue that Gary had seen for the second time only this afternoon, when he met Ethan.  They were also increasingly hostile as he stared at Gary.  Chuck looked worriedly at his friend as the stranger finally cleared his throat.

"I'm Andrew Wallace, district attorney here.  I'd like to know exactly who you two are, and when and where you found my sister."

Gary opened his mouth, closed it, and looked helplessly at Chuck.  Rolling his eyes in return, Chuck sighed as he slumped deeper in his chair.  He silently began composing a phone call to Marissa, telling her to mortgage McGinty's and come bail the two of them, - no, hopefully only Gary - out of the county hoosegow.


	8. Chapter 8

"So?  How'd it go?"  Marissa and Spike were waiting when Gary stalked morosely into his loft that evening, followed by a subdued Chuck.

"You don't want to know," Chuck replied as Gary threw his coat at the chair and headed without comment for the fridge.  The coat slid slowly to the floor as he pulled out a beer and opened it.  Taking a sip, Gary walked over, kicked his coat aside and flopped into his chair.  Staring balefully at nothing, he took a long pull on his beer.  Silently, Chuck closed the door.  Hands in his coat pockets, he eyed Gary uncertainly for a moment before moving towards the couch.

Eyebrows arched in surprise, Marissa listened carefully, wanting to be certain Gary and Chuck were the only ones who had come in.  Rubbing Spike's neck thoughtfully for a moment, she turned toward Chuck when she felt the couch shift beneath his weight on the other end.

"Chuck?  You, um, want to elaborate?"

"What's to tell?  Other than the tornado Gary and Meghan almost got killed in, and the fact her brother happens to be an over-zealous DA who was itching to lock Gary up from the moment he laid eyes on him, nothing happened."  Both Chuck's feet thumped on the coffee table as he spoke, for which he earned a brief glare from a silent Gary.

Marissa frowned, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Tornado-- Lock Gary up?  Why?"

Gary scowled warningly at Chuck, who shrugged innocently.  "She'll find out sooner or later, buddy.  Might as well be from the horse's mouth."  Gary opened his mouth,  took a breath, then shut his mouth, grudgingly conceding Chuck's point.  Marissa was his friend, and embarrassing as it all was, she did deserve some answers.  Besides, she'd just corner Chuck later, when he wasn't around to object.  Chuck would be only too happy to dish out the sordid details without Gary there to make sure he wasn't inflating them.  Not that they needed inflating.  Shrugging sullenly, refusing to meet Chuck's sympathetic gaze, Gary nodded shortly.

"Sure.  Go ahead.  Tell the world, why don't ya?"  His voice bitter, he took another drink of his beer.  Chuck turned to Marissa, hesitating.  He could still hardly believe it himself.

"Well, the DA started by wanting to charge Gary with kidnaping and rape.  Who knows where he might have gone from there.  Course, he had to drop the rape  cause there was no evidence, other than the fact Gary and Meghan spent 4 nights together in his apartment.  Alone."  Chuck gave Gary an ‘I told you so' look, earning another glare in return.

Marissa's jaw literally dropped in amazement.  Spike whined and nuzzled her hand as its rhythmic movement behind his ears faltered.  Absently, she patted him, trying to get her thoughts around Chuck's revelation.

"You're kidding, right?  He didn't really think that Gary, he didn't think..."

Chuck answered when Gary didn't.

"Yeah, well he did think it.  Took some fast talking and a call to Crumb to get us out of there without mortgaging McGinty's for the bail.  Thank God Crumb was home and not out drowning bait somewhere."  Chuck rubbed his face wearily with one hand.  "If he hadn't been home, Wonder Boy over there would have been cooling his heels tonight in an all expense paid suite, courtesy Minter Wells city jail."

His face flushing, Gary pretended not to hear Chuck's jibe, intently inspecting the label on his beer bottle instead.

"Crumb?"  Marissa shook her head.  "Why Crumb?"  This was getting more unbelievable by the minute.

 Chuck shrugged.

"Character witness.  We're just lucky they even let us call him.  Turns out he and Mr. Big Shot District Attorney Andrew A.  Wallace worked together when Wallace was just a young pup, cutting his teeth as an assistant DA in the city courts of Chicago."  Chuck stared thoughtfully at his feet.  "Guess that would explain the man's somewhat jaundiced view of his fellow man.  Though you'd think the guy would have shown a little appreciation, considering Gary had just saved three of his kids from a tornado.  Let alone the fact he'd already saved Meghan from who knows what kind of fate on the streets of Chicago."

"Is this for real?"  Marissa turned to Gary.

"Oh, it's for real alright."  Gary growled around his beer.

Chuck added, "And, it's not over yet.  Basically they released Gary under Crumb's recognizance.  DA's still waiting to talk to Meghan.  Jerk was practically salivating over talking her into pressing charges for something, anything.  He'll be standing over her hospital bed --"

"Hospital?"  Marissa's hands went out in front of her.  "Wait a minute.  How'd Meghan wind up in the hospital?  I thought you were going to take her home?"

"Yeah, so did we.  As usual, Gary's pet paper had other ideas.  First--"

"Look, Chuck, enough is enough, all right!?"  Gary's angry outburst startled both his friends into silence.  Impatiently rising from his chair, Gary stalked around to stand behind it.  He waved his beer first in Chuck and Marissa's general direction, and then toward the door.  "I don't- I don't- look, you two can just take your little gossip fest somewhere else, okay? Somewhere where I don't have to listen to it."  He turned away from their stunned expressions as he took another drink of his beer.

Marissa's eyebrows went up.  Gary was *never* that rude - at least, not to her.  She began to understand just how upset he was about the day's events.

Chuck, for once, saw that wisdom was the better part of valor.

"Yeah, sure, buddy, all right."  He stood, helping Marissa to her feet.  Gary resolutely ignored both of them, concentrating on his beer and the fact that his neck and back were itching like crazy again.  All he wanted to do was get into the shower and wash away the dirt and chaff the day had plastered all over him.

The door closed behind Chuck, and Gary stood for a moment without moving.  He knew Chuck and Marissa would spend the evening worrying about him, picking at what had happened till it fell to pieces like a threadbare quilt in their hands, but he didn't want to deal with anybody's concern right now.  Moving over to the window behind the couch, Gary leaned one arm against the frame and stared out, not really seeing the city lights glittering against a clear twilight sky, not really knowing whether to laugh or cry.  He felt utterly and completely betrayed: by the paper; by Chuck -- whose CYA  attitude had really started to bug Gary about half way through the interview with Meghan's brother.  Interview?  No, interrogation was more like it.  Gary had a hard time believing the guy was even related to Meghan.  Unless - and the way the day had gone this was probably the truth anyway - the woman he had spent the weekend with, the woman he had poured his deepest fears and hopes out to, the woman who had made him believe someone could want him just for who he was and nothing else, that woman was a figment of her own imagination. The family resemblance might be stronger had he met Meghan when she was in charge of all her faculties.

Resting his head against his upraised arm, Gary closed his eyes and sighed.  He had been a fool.  God, what a fool he had been.  Meghan hadn't need him.  He hadn't needed her.  Wanted her, sure.  Like a selfish child wanting all the goodies without the work, he had accepted her assumed relationship with him, been happy to pretend... And look where it had almost gotten him.  A one way ticket to jail.  Gary didn't even want to think about trying to explain today's events to Renee.

Suddenly, Gary was angry; angry at himself, for playing the fool with Meghan.  Angry at the paper, as useless as that was.  Angry with Chuck, for being so selfish - and so insufferably right for once.  Angry with the idiot DA that was Meghan's brother.  Why couldn't the guy understand that Gary had just been trying to help out, that he had actually done them a big favor?  Among the ingrates Gary had run into during his career with the paper, District Attorney Andrew A. Wallace was the hardest to take.  And, he was angry at Meghan, for walking into his life and making him think about things he didn't really want to think about - not to mention what they almost did togther last night.  Why did she have to pick him for her little fantasy?  What was it to her if he and Renee made it as a couple or not?  Her life was fine, or would be soon.  His had been, until she showed up.  Jerking away from the window with a muffled curse, Gary lifted his beer to finish it.  Reconsidering, he took two quick steps and gave the bottle his best pitch against the opposing brick wall.  The crash of breaking glass brought the cat out from under his chair, and Gary's ire was quickly focused on it.  He pointed a finger at it.

"This- this- this is all your fault!  You and that stupid paper of yours--"  The cat sat, tail curling around its feet, and stared yellowly at Gary.   He glared directly back at the cat, wanting to be sure the animal understood it was the object of his anger.  "You could have at least warned me.  You know, put a headline in that, that, that paper of yours, like you do for everybody else who's gonna get into trouble.  How come I'm the only one you don't bother to warn?"

The cat blinked once, then mreeowed.

"Aw, hell.  Look at me!  I'm arguing with a cat.  A stupid cat!"  Throwing his hands up in disgust, Gary headed for the broom.

**********************************************

Tossing restlessly in bed that night, the events of the afternoon replayed continuously in Gary's mind:  His anger when Wallace had accused him of "ulterior motives" for "keeping" Meghan for the weekend, and having "taken advantage" of Meghan's mental condition.  His growing sense of fear when he began to realize just how serious Meghan's brother was about charging him with something - anything; fear that fed on his anger at himself for almost giving Wallace the smoking gun he needed.  Guilt about last night's encounter had been at the forefront of his own thoughts, and he had been certain the DA could smell it like a hound on a blood trail.  If he and Meghan had...  Gary pushed the thought away.  They hadn't, and that was that.  Neither one of them had lost their head for more than a minute or two.

Settling with one arm behind his head, Gary stared at the night around him.  Topping off what had arguably been one of the worst days of his life was the fact that he had no idea how Meghan was doing.  Once Crumb had vouched for him over the phone, the sheriff's deputies had hustled them through the hospital doors and out to Chuck's car without so much as a by-your-leave.  Gary's inquiries about Meghan's condition were met with stubborn silence.  As they were climbing into Chuck's car, a Jeep Wagoneer had come screeching to a halt across the parking lot.  Positive it was the same one they had seen in Aurora that morning, Gary had hesitated, one leg in the car.  All he could make out at that distance, however, was that the driver was male, about Gary's own height with dark hair.  The man had run into the hospital as the deputy sheriff reached out to "help" Gary the rest of the way into the car.  Irritably shrugging off the deputy's hand, Gary slid into the car, and he and Chuck had driven home to Chicago in silence.

_I suppose I should be grateful for small favors_ Gary grumbled to himself.  Chuck was not known for his sensitivity to other people's moods or needs.  His restraint in the car tonight had been nothing short of miraculous.

Gary let out an involuntary "oomph!" as the cat jumped up on his stomach, stepping delicately over to curl up beside him, in the crook of his arm where Meghan had slept.  Gary absently scratched its neck.

"Yeah, I miss her too," he whispered in answer to Cat's mreeow.  Imaginary relationship or not, his apartment echoed with Meghan's absence tonight.  Her earring, remembered as he finally hung up his coat just before climbing into bed, lay on his nightstand, glinting softly in the streetlight that filtered in his window.

Somehow,  in the midst of the turmoil in his thoughts and his heart, the cat snuggled close, Gary finally fell asleep.

***********************

_She was running, pelting pell mell toward the house, Eddie's hand clasped tightly in her own, dragging him along with her when he tripped and fell, refusing to let him quit or lag behind.  Refusing to let him be taken by the howling wind snatching at them as they ran.  Now she could see the house, with the mound that was the storm cellar in the back yard, and her mother, running frantically toward them from the heavy metal door she had just pulled open, the door to safety inside the cellar.  But Meghan wasn't running anymore, she was flying, whirling through the air with the dust and trees and Mrs. Waters' big black rooster that always chased them when they went down the road to pet the rabbits that she raised._

_Meghan couldn't see her mother anymore, but she still held Eddie by one hand.  Stomach turning over as they were tossed by the winds, Meghan felt the fear, felt the terror rising to choke her throat and mind, the storm inside quickly rivaling the one without.  Eddie's hand slipped a little in hers, and she saw his open mouthed face, screaming - so was she, though she couldn't hear herself - as she clawed at him with her other hand, seeking desperately to hold on to him.  She had to hold on; Momma said it would be her fault if anything bad happened, because of what she had done today; it would be her fault so she couldn't let go - she wouldn't let go.  As the world around her went dark, Meghan was conscious of only one thing.  She would never let Eddie go._

_"Meghan?  Meghan?"  The man's voice floated out of the darkness she had drawn around her mind once more, and she hesitated briefly before retreating further into the shadows, shaking her head.  She couldn't live with this; she couldn't face a world where she had been the cause of her brother's death.  But the voice didn't give up.  He sounded worried, troubled... Torn, Meghan half turned toward the voice, wincing at the light that entered her shadowed mind with it.  But the shadows drew her, the hidden places where she didn't have to be the one who had let go, the one who had let her brother die.  She hadn't let go, but it hadn't mattered.  Eddie was still gone.  It was her fault.  There was nothing she could do...  Meghan choked back a sob._

_The voice still called, and suddenly, Meghan began to see into the light beyond the shadows._

_Ethan... she had saved Ethan.  She couldn't save Eddie.  Her mother was wrong.  It wasn't her fault; Meghan had tried with all her 7-year-old might.  The winds had taken Eddie in spite of her effort, and in a sudden flash of insight she understood they would take her, too, forever,  if she didn't walk away now, away from Eddie, away from her guilt.  Slowly, reluctantly, Meghan the frightened child released her brother, and Meghan the adult turned to follow the voice calling her out into the light._

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

Gary's foul mood mellowed towards the end of the week, as his thoughts pulled less and less often into the downward spiral of guilt, betrayal and anger that he lashed himself with the first day or so after the Meghan fiasco.  But, with the threat of impending action from Meghan's brother hanging over his head, Gary - at least, according to Chuck - was still grumpy and "piss-poor company" more often than not.

Friday Gary found the article about Meghan in the paper.  In the "Life" section, headlined MISSING WOMAN HOME AT LAST, her name wasn't mentioned specifically, but it didn't  take the cat sitting on it yowling at him for Gary to know who they were talking about.  Meghan's broken arm had required pins and surgery to set.  Because of that and concern for her unborn child, she had spent three nights in the hospital.  Released Friday morning - about now, he realized as he checked his watch - she was home and mother and baby were expected to make a full recovery.  The article made a big deal about her rescuing Ethan from the tornado, then talked about the rather fantastic events of last weekend.  It was the last half of the article that stunned Gary.

Meghan had an all too similar experience to the tornado Tuesday in her childhood.  Her family's farm was struck by a tornado when she was 7, and her mother and younger brother were killed.  Meghan survived, barely, found in a pile of debris in a field several hundred yards from the remains of their house.  This childhood trauma, together with the tornado she encountered on her way home a week ago, were credited as triggering the amnesiac episode that had left her in Gary's care.

Eddie...  That had to be her younger brother.  Gary sat abruptly on his couch, holding the newspaper before him without really seeing it.  The cat jumped up next to him and sat, purring.  Most people only dream their worst nightmares.  Meghan had lived hers - twice.  What was it Marissa had said?  That something so terrible happens it's easier to forget, to run away, than to deal with what's going on around them?  No wonder Meghan had been in such dire straights.  He knew what it was like to try to rescue someone, only to fail.  He was an adult, though, with an adult's perspective to help him cope with his failures - not that it was easy, even then.  Meghan had only been a child.  The paper didn't give any details, but Gary could guess what had happened.  She had tried to hold on to her brother, and she had failed.  Worse yet, she had lived.

And what had Meghan told him, Tuesday, just before the paramedics arrived?  "I remember everything."  He had thought she meant who she was, where she was from.  Now he wasn't so sure.

A knock on his door interrupted his musing.  He identified the vague outline of a person through the door's frosted glass window as Zeke Crumb.  Carefully folding the paper away first, Gary opened the door.

"Hey Hobson.  Good news.  That little gal you spent the weekend with refuses to press charges.  Looks like you're off the hook free and clear."

"She wasn't a 'little gal,' and I didn't 'spend' the weekend with her."  Gary corrected Crumb irritably.  The retired detective wasn't fazed a bit by Gary's irritation.

"Oh no?  Well, she spent the weekend with you, didn't she?  Here in your apartment?"  When Gary nodded reluctantly, Crumb snorted.  "Sounds like you spent the weekend together to me."

"It, it, it wasn't like that!  Anybody with any sense would have seen--" Crumb's finger was in Gary's face.

"No, Hobson, anyone with any sense would have taken that gal straight to the hospital or the police station.  I still can't believe you were stupid enough to bring her home with you. Fishman, yes, but you?  I would have thought you had more smarts than that."

"Look, I-I- I tried to take her to the hospital the first night.  She wouldn't go!"  Gary protested, indignantly.

"So?  You're bigger than she is, at least I'm assuming you are.  You had Fishman there to help, well, maybe not, but anyway, you could have and you should have taken her to the authorities from the word go.  It was a dumb stunt, letting her stay here for the weekend like that."  Crumb shook his head.  "You could have at least sent her home with Marissa!"

"Yeah, well if hadn't been for that jerk of a DA everything would have been fine.  I took her home as soon as we knew where she belonged.  He just had to get all bent out of shape about it."

"No way, Hobson, no way.  You can't tell me that you expected them not to think the worst when a complete stranger, a single man, no less, shows up four days later with the guy's sister?  They didn't know you from Adam's off ox, and they had every right - _every_ right - to think what they did.  You're just lucky you ran into her brother first and not her husband."

Frustrated, Gary stared at the older man in silence.  Crumb was right, from a certain point of view.  Trouble was, Gary didn't look at life from the same point of view.  He had the paper, and the cat, and things didn't always work out the way the world in general thought they should.  There were reasons for what was - and what wasn't - in the paper, even if he couldn't always see them clearly.  Gary hadn't been so sure about Meghan after Tuesday, but given what he had read in the paper a few minutes ago, he was beginning to think he was wrong and the paper was right, again.   How could he explain to the completely unmystical Crumb that, in some way, Meghan had needed him; that he had needed her?  Gary sighed.  It just wasn't possible.

Crumb stared back at the man in front of him.  Good kid, but he'd be darned if he could ever figure the guy out.  Shaking his head, he turned towards the door.

"Well, I'm supposed to be downstairs mixing drinks.  I suppose you have to go do whatever it is you do.  I'll see you later."

Gary nodded as Crumb left, then reached for the paper again.  There was a 62-year-old grandma who was going to break her neck on a skateboard unless Gary arrived first.  Grabbing his jacket, he hurried out the door and down the stairs.

It didn't occur to Gary until later, much later, that the article in the paper hadn't mentioned him, or his role in the weekend's events - at all.  Once more he fought down a rising tide of bitterness, though he won the battle a little more handily this time than earlier in the week.

Then, Saturday night, Renee called and Gary's world started unraveling again.

*****************************

"She said what?"  Chuck's voice went up, drawing attention from a few too many of the surrounding patrons for Gary's comfort.  It was Sunday afternoon.  The paper taken care of for the time being, Gary was sitting on a stool at McGinty's, hat pulled low over his face, once again nursing a beer and a bad attitude.

"Keep your voice down, do you mind?"  He growled at Chuck, sitting on the stool next to him.  "And you heard what I said.  Renee said the best job offer she'd had so far was in Kansas City."

"Wow," was all Chuck could think of to say.  Forearms resting on the bar, he looked at his friend, blue eyes wide in sympathy.  "This just hasn't been your week, has it?  God or somebody decided it was ‘dump-on-Gary' time, and how.  You'd just better hope whoever's in charge decided it only needed to last a week and not longer."

Gary made a face at his friend over his half upraised beer bottle.

"Yeah, well thanks for the encouragement, buddy."

Chuck slapped Gary's shoulder as he rose.

"Yeah, sure, anytime."  He waltzed off to join Crumb and Marissa, debating some management point at the other end of the bar.  Gary took another drink of his beer and tried to pay attention to the baseball game on the TV over his head.  He had said he'd pick Renee up at the airport tonight, and he wasn't sure he really wanted to.  Once the possibility of Meghan pressing charges against him had passed, Gary had been looking forward to seeing Renee.  Like his Mom's original push to "Just go get the girl," Meghan had arrived to push him past his next hurdle, the stakes going up as he and Renee found their relationship getting more serious.  Gary sighed.  Now it looked like Renee was just going to be the latest woman to decide he didn't have whatever it was she wanted in a man.  The cat appeared at his feet, mreeowing, and Gary glared at it.

"This is all your fault, I hope you know.  If it wasn't for you and that tabloid you come with, I'd be just another normal guy, looking to live a normal life."  Yeah, but without the paper, he might not have met Renee at all.  Once again, the circles his life moved in defied reasonable explanations.  Shrugging, he gave up on the baseball game.  He couldn't even remember who was playing.  The cat jumped up on the bar in front of him.  Gary grabbed it and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor, looking up in surprise as Chuck suddenly materialized beside him, Crumb appearing next in front of him on the other side of the bar.  They weren't looking at him, though.   Confused, Gary turned to see what they were staring at, and nearly dropped his beer at the sight of Meghan greeting Marissa.

Dressed in a flowing khaki colored dress that set off her ruddy coloring, right arm encased in a cast and fastened in a sling about both her shoulders, she looked none the worse for her adventures last week, and slightly more pregnant.  Then Gary realized that Crumb and Chuck weren't staring at Meghan, they were staring at the guy with her.

Gary had been right.  Meghan's husband was about his height,  with the same not-quite-black hair.  A little slimmer than Gary, his face was also narrower, and he sported a short, neatly trimmed beard.  But, from his hair and his eyes - even the eyebrows - to his short black leather jacket and the jeans and tennis shoes he wore, the resemblance to Gary at first sight was uncanny.  On closer inspection the differences - including the St. Louis Cardinals sweatshirt visible under his open jacket - began to be obvious.  However, added to the almost identical names, it was no wonder Meghan, in her confused state of mind, had latched onto Gary Hobson as her protector.  She had remembered more than she realized.

Hudson must have felt their eyes on him, because his gaze suddenly locked with Gary's.  The two men looked at each other for a long moment, then Meghan's husband touched her arm gently as he whispered something in her ear.  Absently, she nodded, still talking to Marissa.  Leaving her side, he came down the bar towards Gary, gray eyes amused as he took in Chuck and Crumb's defensive positions around their friend.

"Gary Hobson?"  His voice was low, with a slight accent.  At Gary's wary nod, he held out his right hand.  "Gary Hudson."  He smiled wryly as he spoke, and Gary tardily took the proffered hand.  "I'm here to apologize for my brother-in-law and thank you for taking care of my wife."

************************************

Half an hour later, Gary found himself alone with Meghan in the office where he and the Hudsons had taken their conversation for privacy.  Seated on the green couch beneath the window, her husband beside her, Meghan had spent a good deal of that time apologizing profusely for her brother's treatment of Gary.  When he had tried to shrug it off, she refused to let him.

"It's not 'all right,' Gary.  He had no right to treat you like that, just to salve his guilty conscience."  Gary frowned briefly from where he straddled Marissa's chair, crossed arms resting on its back.  Whose guilty conscience was she talking about?  Meghan went on.  "You put your life on the line for his family when you didn't even know who we were.  Then you get treated like rat dung by the very man whose children you saved, and all I can think is that our family might be 7 people short if you hadn't been there for us."

Gary couldn't really think of anything to say.  He would rather just forget the whole thing.

Leaning forward, arms on his knees, Hudson spoke into his silence. "Don't worry, I told Andrew exactly what I thought of his petty little vendetta.  Probably covered most of what you would have said too, if he'd given you a chance."  Hudson smiled, his eyes twinkling as he rubbed the knuckles of his right hand.  "Been looking for an excuse to tell that jerk off for years, only Meghan would never let me do it.  ‘He's family.  We have to be nice to him because he's family.'" he mimicked in a high voice.  "She's sure changed her tune now, I can tell you."  Meghan cuffed her husband's shoulder indignantly.  Tensions dissipated in the general laughter that followed, though Gary found himself wondering if the man opposite him would be quite so friendly if he knew *everything* that had gone on last weekend.

Hudson had been certain all along that Meghan was alive. Her brother, on the other hand, had concluded she was a casualty of that Friday morning's tornado.  Brushing aside Hudson's concerns that a living and distraught Meghan might have left the area, he concentrated instead on a county-wide search for her body.

"Which is why he was so hard on you.  He hates being wrong, and he hated it even more because this time I was right and he wasn't.  He had contacts in Chicago who could have helped me search for her."  Hudson's voice was bleak.  "But he wouldn't be bothered to call them.  He knew Meghan was dead.  ‘Just like Eddie and Mom,' he kept insisting, and I couldn't convince him otherwise."

"Eddie?  That was your little brother?  The one you couldn't save?"  At Meghan's confused look, Gary elaborated.  "You talked about him, when you had that nightmare."  _Don't dwell on that night, Gary, not with her husband sitting right there across from you... _ "And, and, Tuesday, Tuesday you said you were going to go look for Eddie, instead of Ethan.  Then I saw the article in the paper, Fri- yesterday, in the Sun-Times. They didn't give any names, but it was pretty obvious it was about you.  It all just kind of added up..."  Gary shrugged.  Meghan smiled briefly, then nodded in answer to his question.  Gary turned back to Hudson, curious.

"What made you so sure she was still alive?"

"Well, this has happened twice before.  The first time, 12 years ago, she somehow made her way from St. Louis to St. Paul.  We still haven't figured out how."  Meghan looked embarrassed.  Hudson reached for her hand.  "She spent a week in jail and 2 weeks in the psych ward of the state hospital before someone finally got smart enough to check the missing persons reports for anyone matching her description.  The second time was 4 years ago.  We were out looking for her right away, so she didn't get far.  The police found her first, and she went berserk on them, not understanding ‘who they were or if their intentions were honorable,' as she put it later."  Gary smiled as Meghan gave him an apologetic look.  The scratch she left on his face last week was pretty much gone by now.  Hudson went on, unmindful of the exchange between the two. "Fortunately, I got there not long after, and she settled down enough that they let me take her home without charging her with anything."

Pausing, Meghan's husband studied their intertwined fingers for a moment before looking at Gary.  His gaze was sober.

"That's why you couldn't get her to go to the police or the hospital.  And, both times this has happened in the past, I've been the one to find her, to come get her... rescue her.  I think somewhere inside she believed I'd show up sooner or later to get her this time too.  Only, it wasn't me, it was you."  Hesitating a second, Hudson looked somberly at his wife, then back at Gary.  "If you hadn't taken care of her, there's no telling where she could have wound up or what would have happened to her."  Hudson was wrong.  Gary could have told him what would have happened to Meghan.  "I owe you more than I can ever repay you for returning her to me, Mr. Hobson."

"Um, well, that's all right...  I didn't really do that much..." Gary's voice trailed off awkwardly as he shrugged, shifting helplessly in his chair.  He was at least as uncomfortable with gratitude from those he helped as he was irritated with their ingratitude.  Meghan cut in.

"No, Gary, you did more than you think.  By just accepting me, playing along with me even, you kept me from losing control completely.  Because of you, I was able to hold myself together better than I did either of the other times.  Then, in the tornado Tuesday, I found myself face to face with my past.  After it was over, I realized how much it had ruled my mind and my life, more than I was willing to admit."  Meghan's eyes clouded.  "It took everything I had to hold onto Ethan.  If we hadn't been thrown clear when we were, I would have lost him... like I lost Eddie.  Another child could never have held onto anyone in a storm like that.  Eddie's death wasn't my fault.  I know that now.  And, the storms, the darkness in my mind, they're pretty much gone, since I woke up in the hospital Wednesday morning."  She smiled.  "And it's in large part because of you."

Gary, embarrassed again, suddenly realized something.

"Wait a minute...  You said 7 people short.  There were only the 4 kids and you..."  Meghan and Hudson both laughed at his confusion.

"Well, they did several ultrasounds while I was in the hospital.  Turns out I'm expecting twins."

***************************

After that, some sort of signal had passed between the two Hudsons, and Gary - Gary Hudson - had risen to his feet with some vague comment about wanting both a beer and to check on the game.  He left the office, evidently willing to leave Meghan to say whatever else it was she had to say to Gary in private.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed his departure, the cat appeared, jumping up on the couch with a mrreow.  Meghan smiled, stroking the cat with her good hand as it made itself comfortable in her lap.

"I have a cat at home, you know.  Boru is a big Russian blue, though, about twice the size of Cat here."  She rubbed hard under the cat's jaw, the rumble of its purr increasing in gratitude.  "You helped too, you know, little one," she addressed it.  "You helped too."

Chin resting on his crossed arms, Gary watched dubiously from his chair, not so sure he'd be willing to call the cat's contributions to his life  "help."

When Meghan met Gary's gaze a moment later, she smiled, and Gary found himself smiling in return.  This woman wasn't a figment of anyone's imagination.  Meghan in reality was much the same as his weekend companion had been.  Too bad it looked like all he would wind up with of both Meghan and Renee would be his memories of their briefly shared "warm fuzzies" - as Chuck so inelegantly called them.   Renee...Gary wrenched his thoughts away from that dead end and concentrated instead on the woman in front of him.

She was looking around the office now, shifting slightly on the uncomfortable vinyl couch.  Her brow furrowed briefly as she focused on the contented cat rumbling in her lap, then her glance swept the office once more, as if she were searching for inspiration in her surroundings, much as he had Tuesday morning in his loft.  Catching his eye then, she took a deep breath before speaking.

"Gary, I wanted to tell you... I talked to Gary - my Gary," she amended smiling, "about this weekend.  About everything."  Eyes serious, still stroking the cat, she waited for his reaction.

It took a minute.  Sitting up straight, Gary stared incredulously at her as the import of her words sank in.

"Everything?"  He glanced nervously over his shoulder toward the door out to the bar.

Meghan nodded, pushing the cat away as she leaned forward, shifting towards him where he sat 5 feet away.  Her voice was low, intense.

"He wasn't thrilled.  But, he also understands that you backed off as soon as you realized where things were going."  Gary looked away.  He wasn't so sure about that.  Unaware of - or ignoring - his doubts, Meghan continued, "If you had pushed at all that night, if you hadn't let me go, chances are I would have gone along with whatever you wanted to do.  I was so confused, so frightened, and you were the only thing holding me together at that point.  You could have convinced me to do anything... if you had wanted to."  Gary shifted uncomfortably in his chair.  He *had* wanted to... for a little while.  Meghan wasn't finished.  "You took care of me without taking advantage of me, and Gary understands that.  It's part of why he's here.  He was just so relieved that I'm home, and safe... He said that, that you and I, there's nothing to feel guilty about."  Her eyes searched his, her turn to will him to accept her words.

Gary looked away.  After berating himself all week for that lapse, for almost playing right into her brother's hands, here was Meghan - and her husband - both offering absolution for his - and her - momentary lapse.  He wasn't quite sure what to make of it.  Finally Gary nodded uncertainly, shrugging as he accepted the gift.

"Okay."  What else could he say?

Meghan smiled softly as their eyes met.  When Gary smiled tentatively in return, she leaned back against the couch.  Thoughtfully she examined the ring on her good hand for a moment, then her dark blue eyes caught his again.  Uncertainly, she began to speak.

"I wanted to tell you this Tuesday before we left, but I..."  Chewing her lower lip she eyed him nervously for a moment.  Gary waited quietly, not sure where she was going to go with her words.  Taking a deep breath, Meghan plunged in.  "Gary, you talked so much about not being able to live up to what your ex-wife, Marcia, wanted of you.  About maybe not being able to live up to what any woman might want from you.  Did you ever stop to think that maybe Marcia couldn't live up to what you are?"

Flummoxed, Gary stared at Meghan.  Eyes focused on her ring again, turning it nervously about her finger with her thumb,  she wasn't to the end of what she had to say yet.

"You have a big heart, Gary.  You fight it, but it's there, for anyone to see who will.  From what you told me, your wife, she wasn't willing to let you live by your heart.  She tried to make you small, make you fit in her world.  Only you couldn't.  So in her own smallness, she chose to throw you out, and then pushed all the blame off on you for her own decision."

Gary opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then looked away as he closed it one more time.  Just last weekend he had finally accepted that the meltdown of his and Marcia's relationship wasn't entirely his fault.  But, he had never even begun to think of anything remotely like this.  He wasn't sure he could grasp it now, with Meghan laying it all out so neatly for him.  He pushed impatiently at the cat now curling around his foot.  Besides, what about Renee?  She was dumping him, too...  Or was she?  Gary was silent, thinking about last night's conversation with Renee.  Suddenly he realized she hadn't said she was taking the job in Kansas City, she just said it was the best offer so far.  Maybe she wanted a better offer... from him.  He realized that Meghan was watching him nervously,  unsure if she had offended him or not with her words.  He shook his head.

"Um, no, well, no, what I mean is... I never, I never thought of it quite like that before." Embarrassed, he ducked his head, then looked up to find Meghan smiling at him.

"Well, you should."

*************************

He kept the earring.  Debating whether or not to throw it away all week, he hadn't been sure he wanted reminders of Meghan's presence in his life.  But, he wasn't sure he wanted to forget her completely either.  Maybe he would just mail it to her.  Saturday Chuck had seen it on his nightstand, and, opening his mouth to comment, found himself facing a Gary he'd rarely seen, a hard and angry Gary.

"No.  Don't even start, Chuck."  Wonder of wonders, Chuck didn't.

Tonight he was about to mention it when Meghan remarked that she lost both her earrings in the tornado.  They had been a Christmas gift from Gary - her Gary - and she felt spoiled because he had already ordered another pair for her.  Gary decided he could keep the one he had with a clean conscience.

The Hudsons were gone shortly after that, leaving a quiet and thoughtful Gary standing in the door.

"Well?  It looks like everything turned out okay."

Startled, Gary jumped.  Chuck had materialized at his elbow again, and Gary glared at him as he moved out of the way of some patrons just coming into the bar, then headed for the office without answering his friend.  He really had too much to think about to deal with Chuck right now.

Refusing to be shook off, Chuck followed him through the office door.  Gary gave up on escape from his friend's inquisitiveness for the time being and turned to face him.

"Well?  Let's share here, buddy.  What did they have to say?"  Eyebrows cocked, Chuck leaned against a desk, crossing his arms across his chest. "Mr. Muffet didn't seem to be in any hurry to take your head off, so Missus Muffet must not have given him all the details of your little tryst."

Exasperated, Gary thought he'd had just about enough of Chuck's insinuations.

"It wasn't a tryst, and she did tell him."  Hands in his back pockets, Gary waited for Chuck's reaction, still not sure he could believe it all himself.

Chuck stared at Gary as if he had just grown another head.

"She told him?"

Gary nodded. "She told him everything."

Staring at Gary as if he had 2 extra heads now, Chuck tried again.

"You're kidding, right?  Everything as in _everything_?" Chuck's eyebrows couldn't go any higher as Gary nodded at him.  Waving his hands once to emphasize his denial, Chuck said, "No way.  She couldn't have told him, or he wouldn't have been here tonight, except maybe to take off your head. He was way too friendly.  Me, if it had been my wife, I don't care who you were, _I_ would have taken your head off."  Standing upright now, arms crossed again, Chuck looked as sanctimonious as he sounded.

"Yeah, well, that's you.  This was him.  Guess that makes a little difference, huh?"  Gary turned toward the stairs.

Blue eyes wide, Chuck shook his head.  "All I can say, my friend, is your luck amazes me.  You go from facing the possibility of who knows how long in jail for something you didn't do, to being bosom pals with the guy whose wife you almost slept with.  I should be so lucky."

"Yeah, well the operative word there, my friend, is 'almost.'  You gotta get that part down to have the rest.  And, I wouldn't exactly call it ‘bosom pals.'"  Coming to a quick decision, Gary forestalled Chuck's next comment with his own question.  "Hey, can I borrow your car? If I don't leave soon, I'm gonna be late picking Renee up."

Chuck's eyebrows went up again.

"You're still going to pick her up?  After what she told you last night?"  He dug his keys out of his pocket, dangling them for Gary to take.

"Yeah, well, don't you think maybe I should discuss it with her before I decide she really said anything?"  Gary stepped back to grab the keys as Chuck shrugged.

"Why?  She sounded pretty clear to me.  But hey, it's your funeral."

Almost through the door at the bottom of the stairs, Gary shook his head, suddenly unwilling to believe that Renee would do that to him.  She wasn't Marcia, not by a long shot.  Besides, since when should he start taking Chuck's advice about women?

"Be sure you fill the tank before you bring it back," Chuck yelled, as Gary took the stairs two at a time.  If he hurried, he'd have time to stash one earring and grab his coat before he left for the airport.

THE END


End file.
